What happens when a payment fails?

Card payments sometimes fail: a card expires, a bank declines, or funds run short. Fabrik Analytics gives you time and several warnings before anything changes.

Before you start

• Only people who manage billing can fix a payment: the Client Owner on a brand; the owner, a director or the CFO on an agency; the portfolio's owner for a portfolio's Enterprise plan.
• You will need a working card.

What happens, in order

1. The payment fails. Stripe, our payment provider, schedules automatic retries. You receive an email, "We could not take payment for {name}", with the amount and the date of the next attempt. The Billing page shows a Payment due badge on Your plan and a notice on Card and billing details: "A payment failed. Stripe retries automatically; updating the card now avoids any interruption."
2. A second attempt fails. You receive another email, and the notice changes to "A second payment attempt failed. Update the card to keep the plan."
3. Final notice. When Stripe has no retries left, you receive "Final notice: payment for {name}". You have 24 hours to resolve it. The notice reads: "Final notice: without a working card this workspace moves to the Free plan (30 days of history)."
4. If it is still unpaid after 24 hours:
   • a brand moves to the Free plan, and you receive "{name} has moved to the Free plan";
   • an agency moves to the free agency plan, with one client. Its plan stops covering its clients, so each client brand goes back to its own plan, which is Free unless it has one of its own;
   • a portfolio's Enterprise plan bought at checkout ends, you receive "{portfolio}'s Enterprise plan has ended", and each brand goes back to its own plan.

Nothing is deleted at any step, and your data keeps importing throughout.

A portfolio plan agreed with Fabrik as a custom deal works differently: a failed payment sends the same first email, but the plan is never ended automatically. Fabrik follows up with you.

Fix it

1. Open Billing from the menu under your name. In a brand you can also use Settings, then Billing.
2. On Card and billing details, choose Manage card and details, or Add a card if none is on file.
3. Add a working card in Stripe's page and make it the default.
4. Return to the app. Stripe retries on its schedule with the new card. When the payment succeeds, the badge goes back to Active and the notice disappears.

Avoid it next time

The people who manage billing receive "Your card ending {digits} expires soon" about 30 days and again about 7 days before the card on file expires. Updating the card then avoids a failed payment.

What you will see after moving to Free

• The Billing page notice: "This workspace moved to the Free plan after failed payments. Choose a plan any time to restore it."
• Free keeps a 30-day dashboard, your integrations, tracking and a team of two. Features outside Free show a lock.
• Choose a plan from Plans to restore everything. Your full history opens again straight away.

Troubleshooting

• You updated the card but the notice is still there: the notice clears after the next successful attempt, not when the card is saved. Wait for the retry date in the email, or email support@fabrik.ae if you want it retried sooner.
• An invoice shows open in Invoices: that is the failed invoice waiting to be collected. It changes to paid once a retry succeeds.