Renewal and late payment

Your period end is approaching, or a charge to your card failed, and you are worried the service will cut out without warning. It will not: {{brand.name}} reminds you first, then retries a few times, then grants a grace period. This guide walks through that timeline and what happens at each step.

In this article you will find:

• The renewal timeline
• If your card is stored
• If your card is not stored
• If no payment arrives: the grace period
• If the grace period runs out: dropping to the free plan
• Coming back after you pay
• Limits

The renewal timeline

About a week before your period ends, a renewal order is opened for you. At the same moment a "renewal reminder" email with a payment link is sent. The order also appears as a notice box at the top of the Plan tab, and is listed under Orders with the status Awaiting payment.

If you have a scheduled plan change, the renewal order is opened with the new plan; if you have a running discount code, the discount is applied automatically. So the amount is never a surprise: it is already written on the Next payment row of the Plan tab.

How many days ahead the reminder goes out and how long the grace period lasts are platform settings; the order of events below never changes, only the day counts can differ.

If your card is stored

If you chose a payment method that stores your card when you bought (its description read "Your card is stored securely"), you do not do the renewing.

1. When the period ends, the amount is charged to your card.
2. If the charge succeeds, the order becomes Paid, the new period starts and you get a "payment received" email.
3. If the charge fails, the subscription drops to Payment due and you get a "payment overdue" email with a payment link.
4. The charge is retried a few more times at widening intervals. Every failed attempt sends a new email.

Being told about every attempt is deliberate: you are not expected to discover a full card limit, an expired card or a bank block on your own.

💡 Tip: You do not have to wait for the retries to finish. The Pay button on the pending order box on the Plan tab takes you to the payment step, where you can also choose a different payment method.

If your card is not stored

If you chose a method that does not store a card, renewal is done with a payment link. You pay the order yourself.

• A reminder email arrives when the order is opened.
• One more reminder arrives one day before the period ends.
• The new period starts the moment you pay.

Paying before the period ends does not burn your days: the new period always starts when the current one ends. The checkout screen says so too: "The new period starts when your current period ends; you do not lose a single day."

If you chose a method where the payment provider sets up its own subscription product, the provider runs the renewal entirely. No manual renew button appears in the panel, and nothing is called overdue until a few days after period end; the provider retries on its own schedule.

If no payment arrives: the grace period

If the period has ended and the payment still has not arrived, the subscription stays in Payment due and a grace period begins. The top bar reads "Your subscription payment is due (period end: {date}). Complete your payment to avoid interruption."

During the grace period nothing shuts down. Your accounts stay connected, messages arrive, automations run, posts publish, and every quota and feature of your plan stays in force.

The one difference is AI credits: no new monthly credits open for an unpaid period. The credit window freezes at period end, so your plan credits do not renew during the grace period. Any extra credits you hold keep being used.

If the grace period runs out: dropping to the free plan

When the grace period also passes with no payment, the subscription ends and drops to the free plan. At that moment:

1. The status becomes Active but your plan is the free plan; the period and renewal date are cleared.
2. The free plan's quotas apply. Your existing usage is not deleted, only new additions are refused.
3. Features the free plan does not cover are locked; automation runs that reach those steps stop.
4. The subscription at the payment provider is closed and your stored card key is deleted. No charge is ever made again without your consent.
5. Pending orders are dropped; an expired renewal order can no longer be paid. The right to use your discount code is returned to you.
6. You receive a "paid plan ended" email.

None of your data is deleted. Connected accounts, contacts, tags, custom fields, automations, the media library and every conversation stay exactly where they are.

Coming back after you pay

There are two routes back, and which one applies depends on whether the grace period has run out.

If the grace period has not run out: paying the pending renewal order is enough. The new period starts from the old period's end, so the days spent overdue are not billed to you and your period dates do not shift. The subscription returns to Active and the retry counters reset.

If the grace period has run out: you can no longer pay that order; you get "This order has expired." You buy the plan again from the Plan tab. That is a new purchase: the period starts on the day of payment. Every locked feature and quota opens again instantly, and your data is untouched.

Limits

• The length of the grace period is a platform setting and cannot be changed from the panel.
• You can cancel an overdue subscription. The confirmation reads "Your overdue subscription will end shortly…"
• If your user account is scheduled for deletion, renewal is stopped, pending orders are cancelled and billing emails are not sent. Cancel the deletion and renewal resumes, as long as the period or the grace period is still running.
• You cannot cancel a renewal order by hand. No Cancel button is drawn on a renewal order in the pending order box.
• A period is never charged twice. If something goes wrong after a payment is taken and it cannot be written to the subscription, the record is processed again rather than the card being charged a second time.

To check the reasons a payment cannot be taken, one by one, see The payment could not be taken or contact our Support team.

Related articles

• The Plan screen
• Choosing and changing your payment method
• Order detail
• Cancelling a subscription and refunds
• The payment could not be taken