Retry a failed charge

September 8, 2026

A declined renewal used to be a week you simply lost. Nothing retried it, the subscription moved straight on to the next week, and even after the customer updated their card there was no way to go back and collect. Failed deliveries now carry a Retry charge action.

What it is

A delivery whose charge was declined now offers Retry charge in two places: on the subscription's own Deliveries list, and in the panel that opens when you select a failed order on the Orders page. Both charge the same delivery.

Servd asks you to confirm first, and shows what you are about to charge for — the delivery week, the meals in it, and why the last attempt failed — because this bills the customer's payment method straight away.

The charge uses the subscription's current price, including that week's add-ons and any discount on the subscription. If the customer's card is still the one that was declined, it will be declined again, the delivery goes back to Failed, and you can try again later.

Only a failed delivery can be charged this way. A scheduled one already has its own charge coming and is left alone, and a paid one is done.

Why it matters

An expired card is the most ordinary reason a subscription misses a payment, and it is usually fixed within a day or two — but the week it cost you was gone regardless. The renewal chain had already moved on, so the customer's next box arrived as normal while the missed one stayed uncollected.

This closes that gap without touching the customer's schedule. The delivery keeps its week and the meals that were chosen for it, so the box that ships is the one the customer expected.

Your order cutoff does not block it. The cutoff closes customer self-service; a failed charge is something you find out about afterwards, so the action stays available on a week that has already closed.

How to use it

Send the customer a payment method update link first — Customer Portal on the subscription does this, and Shopify handles the card details securely. Retrying before they have updated anything just repeats the decline.

From the subscription: open Subscriptions, select the customer, find the Failed week under Deliveries, open it and select Retry charge. The banner at the top of the page points you at the week that needs attention.

From Orders: set the status filter to Failed, select the order, then select Retry charge and confirm.

The delivery moves to Processing while Shopify takes the payment, then to Paid with a link to the new order — usually within a minute, and the page updates on its own. A charge cannot be undone from Servd; if you collect one by mistake, refund it in Shopify admin as you would any other order.