subbyFailed-payment recovery is how Subby's subscription engine keeps a subscription alive after a charge does not go through. It is not a standalone payment engine. The payment rail attempts the charge; Subby owns the retry schedule, subscriber nudges, escalation and the subscription state that follows.
Recovery workspace
The recovery queue can be filtered by failure reason, bank, days overdue and amount. Each row shows the customer, amount, plain-language failure reason, days overdue, retry attempt, next retry time and the delivery status of every nudge.
From the queue, a merchant can retry, send a nudge, pause the subscription or contact the customer. Bulk nudge actions preview the number of messages they consume and any projected overage cost before confirmation.
Retry and escalation rules
Each plan defines retry intervals, reminder timing and what happens after the final failure. A combined timeline shows the sequence from the first failure through retries, nudges, service restriction and cancellation.
Subby validates a schedule against payment-rail constraints. For example, a retry may need to wait after a do-not-honour response, and a retry-now action can be unavailable after a rail's daily failure lockout. The interface explains the reason instead of hiding the action.
See Subscription lifecycle for the API model.
Multi-channel nudges
Nudge templates support SMS, WhatsApp and email, with channel-specific previews:
- SMS character and segment counts make message cost visible.
- WhatsApp templates expose approval state and cannot send while approval is pending.
- Email previews show the complete recovery message.
- Template variables are validated before saving.
- A merchant can send a test to their own phone or email.
Every pay-now nudge can lead to a focused page containing the amount, reason for payment and the fastest country-appropriate payment method.
Measurement
A recovery funnel tracks failed → retried → nudged → recovered. Use it to watch recovery rate, recovered amount, time from failure to successful payment, and nudge conversion by channel.
What to monitor
- Recovery rate and recovered amount.
- Time from failure to successful payment.
- Nudge delivery and conversion by channel.
- Failure and recovery rates by bank and rail.
- Subscriptions approaching mandate exhaustion.
- Plans whose retry schedule creates low recovery or excessive messaging.
Frequently asked questions
How does Subby recover a failed subscription charge?
The subscription engine retries the charge on the plan's schedule, sends configured nudges, and applies the plan's escalation rule if the subscriber still does not pay.
Does Subby move the money itself?
No. Supported payment rails complete the charge. Subby coordinates the subscription, mandate, retry policy and subscriber communication around that attempt.