What happens when auto-refill fails 3 times in a row?
Cards fail sometimes — they expire, the bank declines, the daily limit is exceeded, or a transient processor error trips up the charge. Valid Email Checker does not give up on the first failure. It retries on a graduated schedule. But after three consecutive failed refill attempts, the system stops trying and auto-suspends your auto-refill until you intervene. This protects you from a card endlessly being declined while the platform also avoids racking up failed charge attempts that can hurt your processor reputation.
The retry schedule before the third strike
| Attempt | What happens | When the next retry runs |
|---|---|---|
| 1st failure | Refill attempt fails. Failure count = 1. A notification email is sent to the account owner. | 1 hour later |
| 2nd failure | Retry runs after 1 hour. If it fails, failure count = 2. An urgent email is sent. | 24 hours later |
| 3rd failure | Retry runs 24 hours after the 2nd failure. If it fails, failure count = 3 and auto-refill auto-suspends. | No further retry |
The hours between retries are not arbitrary. The first hour gives a temporary processor issue time to resolve. The 24-hour wait gives the user a full business day to update the card if the problem is on their end. After three strikes the system concludes the card is not going to work and stops trying.
What changes the moment the suspension kicks in
- The Auto-Refill toggle in the dashboard header switches to off.
- A yellow warning icon appears next to the toggle, with the tooltip "Auto-refill disabled due to repeated payment failures."
- The toggle is disabled (greyed out / cursor-not-allowed) — you cannot flip it back on in one click. You must open the settings modal first.
- A final notification email lands in your inbox explaining the suspension and what to do next.
- A row appears in your auto-refill history with status
failedand the underlying error message.
How the failure counter resets
The auto_refill_failure_count field on your account does not reset just because time passes. It only resets when a successful refill lands. The moment one refill succeeds, the counter goes back to zero and the next failure starts the cycle fresh at 1. This is deliberate — if your card had two failures last week and one again today, you are at three strikes overall, not one, and the suspension fires.
Getting auto-refill back on
The recovery path is short but you cannot skip it. Update your card on the billing page, then follow the steps in how do I re-enable auto-refill after suspension. The platform will not let you turn the toggle back on while the failure count is still 3 — that would just produce a 4th failure on the same bad card.
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