What happens if my card fails on a subscription renewal?

Cards fail occasionally — expired card, insufficient funds, fraud-block hold, issuer-side decline. The system has a specific handling flow for this that is different from auto-refill (which retries on a schedule). It is worth understanding both because they look similar at first glance but behave very differently.

What actually happens on a failed renewal

On your scheduled billing date, the renewal cron attempts the off-session charge once. There is no built-in 1-hour / 24-hour / 72-hour retry schedule like auto-refill has — renewals are a single attempt by design, so an expired card does not trigger ten failed-charge attempts at your bank.

When that single attempt fails, three things happen in one transaction:

1. A pending invoice is created in your account with a 7-day due date. The invoice has its own number (format VEC-25-XXXXXXXX) and shows up under Account Settings → Invoices.
2. Your subscription flips to `past_due`. The current_period_end and next_billing_date both move to "7 days from now" — that is the grace window.
3. An invoice email is sent with the invoice number, amount, due date, plan details, and a direct link to the invoice page.

During the 7-day grace period

Your monthly credits stay active during the entire grace period. You can keep verifying emails, running bulk jobs, using the API. Nothing about the verification side of the product changes — only the subscription's billing status is in limbo.

The dashboard shows a past-due banner across the top of the Billing & Payments page with a Pay button that takes you straight to the invoice. The banner text reads something like *"Pay your pending invoice before [date] to keep your credits active."* That is literal — paying the invoice before the deadline keeps everything running; missing the deadline cancels the subscription.

How to fix it

Two routes, both starting from the same place.

Path 1 — pay the pending invoice from the banner

1. Open Account Settings → Billing & Payments.
2. Find the red past-due banner at the top.
3. Click the Pay button. You land on the invoice page (/invoices/[invoice-number]).
4. Pick a payment method (card or crypto). The checkout flow lets you use a new card if your old one expired.
5. Complete the payment. The subscription reactivates immediately — past_due flips back to active, current_period_end moves to 30 days from the payment, and the renewal you missed is now considered paid.

Path 2 — pay from the Invoices tab

1. Open Account Settings → Invoices.
2. Find the pending invoice in Invoice History (status Pending or Overdue).
3. Click View Receipt or open the invoice number to land on the same payment page.
4. Complete payment as above.

If you do not pay within 7 days

When the 7-day grace expires without payment:

• The subscription flips from past_due to cancelled (one step, no intermediate "expired" state).
• The monthly credit bucket is zeroed.
• Any remaining pending or overdue invoices for the account are auto-cancelled.
• A second email is sent (subscription_cancelled_unpaid) with the invoice number and the reason "Payment not received within grace period".
• PAYG credits are untouched — they persist forever regardless of subscription state.

Once cancelled, you cannot reactivate the same subscription. You would start a fresh one if you want monthly credits again. PAYG credits stay where they are, and the account itself is not affected.

How this differs from auto-refill failures

Both flows involve failed card charges, but they behave very differently:

If you have both an active subscription and auto-refill enabled, a card expiry can trigger both flows simultaneously — the renewal fails (pending invoice) and the next auto-refill attempt also fails (counted against the 3-retry limit). Update the card, pay the pending invoice, and re-enable auto-refill if it auto-disabled. See auto-refill setup for the auto-refill side.

Common questions

Why does the system not retry the renewal automatically?

Because automatic retries on a card that just failed tend to make things worse — they look like fraud attempts to issuers, can rack up declined-charge fees, and rarely succeed if the underlying problem (expired card, insufficient funds) has not been fixed. Manual retry through the invoice flow lets you pick a different card if needed and avoids the bank-side noise.

Can I update my card during the grace period without paying yet?

Yes — go to Account Settings → Billing & Payments → Payment Methods and add a fresh card. Set it as the default. Then go to the invoice page and pay — the new card will be the default option during checkout. Adding a card alone does not trigger a charge.

What if I cannot pay before the 7 days expire?

The subscription cancels and monthly credits zero out. PAYG credits stay. You can resubscribe to the same plan (or any plan) anytime after that — it just becomes a fresh subscription rather than a continuation. If you genuinely need an extension (long bank hold, fraud verification, etc.), email support@validemailchecker.com before the grace expires and we can sometimes manually extend.

Do I get any warning emails between the initial failure and the grace expiry?

The invoice email goes out at the moment of failure with the due date clearly stated. Beyond that, the dashboard banner is always visible during the grace period as a persistent reminder. We do not currently send a separate "your grace period is about to expire" reminder email — the original invoice email plus the dashboard banner are the touchpoints.

What if the renewal would have changed plans (scheduled downgrade)?

If you had a scheduled downgrade and the renewal payment fails, the downgrade is still pending — but the subscription is in past_due, not active. Paying the pending invoice applies the downgrade as expected and reactivates the subscription on the new (smaller) plan. If you let the grace expire, the cancellation overrides the scheduled downgrade entirely.

Next steps