Shopify subscription billing attempt failed / dunning not recovering — Customer Payment Method, billing attempts API, Recharge / Skio / Shopify Subscriptions.

Several products can look like “subscriptions are broken.” They do not share a settings panel. This page is only when a subscription billing attempt fails on an existing contract and dunning / retry / card-update recovery is not bringing it back to paid. The Subscribe and save / selling plan widget missing on the PDP is selling plan not showing. The upcoming-charge or renewal reminder never emailed is subscription renewal email not sending. The customer cannot pay at first checkout (AVS / 3DS / soft decline with no subscription contract yet) is Shopify Payments card declined. Capture payment failing on an authorized one-time order is manual payment capture failing. The decline happened but the customer never got the recovery email is failed payment / dunning email not sending— adjacent, but that playbook is the mail, not the failed billing attempt itself. This page is only: Shopify subscription billing attempt failed / dunning not recovering.

Six ordinary reasons attempts keep failing while the contract stays past due: Customer Payment Method expired or detached, subscription app dunning / retry paused or misconfigured, gateway soft declines with no card-update portal, billing attempts API / webhook backlog so ops never sees the failure, you are debugging selling plan UI / renewal email / checkout declines / manual capture instead, or staff cancel and recreate contracts instead of fixing the payment method. Walk them in that order. You already pay for Shopify and usually Recharge, Skio, or Shopify Subscriptions. You do not need another “recovery SaaS” to read failed attempts and the payment method on file.

Open the subscription contract in Shopify admin (Orders → Subscriptions / customer → Subscriptions) or in Recharge / Skio / Shopify Subscriptions. Find the failed billing attempt: timestamp, amount, error / decline code, and whether a retry is scheduled. Open the Customer Payment Method (or vaulted card) — last4, expiry, billing address, status (active / revoked / expired). Screenshot attempt + payment method before you change retry settings.

Honest proof: if there is no failed attempt — only a missing Subscribe button on the PDP — leave this page and use selling plan not showing. If the attempt succeeded but the renewal reminder never emailed, that is subscription renewal email not sending. If the customer never got past first checkout, that is card declined, not subscription dunning.

In the subscription app: retry schedule (days between attempts), max attempts before cancel / pause, dunning email / SMS / Inbox templates Live (not draft), and the customer portal or “update payment method” link. Confirm the link lands on a working Customer Payment Method update flow — not a password page, not a deleted theme URL, not a Klaviyo draft. For native Shopify Subscriptions, check Settings → Subscriptions and the customer account portal payment method section. For Recharge / Skio / Appstle / Smartrr, check their dunning / recovery / payment method update settings and that the app is still installed with required scopes.

Honest proof: send yourself a test card-update link from a past due subscription. If the mail is the only failure while retries are charging, use failed payment / dunning email not sending. If the app vs a Latch install is the decision, see subscription app vs ops install.

Read the decline / error on the billing attempt the same way you would a checkout decline: insufficient funds, expired card, do-not-honor, authentication required, incorrect CVC, processor unavailable. Soft declines need a customer card update; hard declines need a new Customer Payment Method. If you use the Subscriptions billing attempts API or app webhooks, confirm failed attempts are writing to the contract timeline and that your ops channel (Slack / email / Flow) still receives the failure event — a silent API backlog looks like “dunning is broken” when the store never saw the attempt.

Honest proof: after the customer updates the payment method, trigger or wait for the next retry and confirm a successful billing attempt (or a new, clearer decline code). Capture payment on a one-time authorized order that is not a subscription contract is still manual payment capture failing— do not mix those admin actions.

Subscribe and save widget missing on the PDP is selling plan not showing. Upcoming renewal reminder silence is subscription renewal email not sending. First-checkout card declines with no contract are card declined / AVS 3DS. Capture payment greyed out on an authorized one-time order is manual payment capture failing. Decline happened but mail never left is failed payment email not sending. None of those fix a failed billing attempt when the payment method and dunning settings are the actual product.

Finish failed attempts → Customer Payment Method → dunning / retry / card-update → gateway error first. Only then open the related playbook that matches the remaining symptom.

Stay DIY if you can spend one afternoon on the list above: prove failed billing attempts and the Customer Payment Method, walk Shopify Subscriptions or Recharge / Skio dunning and card-update settings, clear gateway / payment method status, and stop confusing selling plan UI / renewal email / checkout declines / manual capture with a failed subscription billing attempt. That is the whole playbook. No agency required. Short answers also live on the merchant FAQ. Related pages: selling plan not showing, renewal email, failed payment email, card declined, manual capture, subscription app vs install.

Pay for help when the work is not the subscription app panel — it is connecting the stack you already have so lead capture is not dying in DMs, failed billing attempts and dunning exceptions land in a channel you already check, and the live store is one workflow instead of a spreadsheet plus a Slack bot you forgot. That is the Latch AI Ops install.

What $997 USD one-time buys: lead capture on the live store, ops alerts in a channel you already check, and a checkout-ready workflow. 72 hours after collaborator access, not after payment. One live Shopify store. Access plus a delivery thread. Store URL collected at checkout. Not a SaaS seat, not a dunning-recovery retainer, not a recovered-MRR guarantee, not a brand or theme job.

Other shops’ public ranges, not testimonials: a checkout / ops install typically runs $500–$2,500. A full ops consulting block typically runs $2,000–$5,000. $997 is the cheap end of that work, sold as a 72-hour install of three systems — not as an earnings number or recovered-subscription claim.

What it does not buy: more orders, recovered MRR, a forever dunning-recovery rate, a subscription app license, or a case study. Latch AI Ops has not published customer proof because there are no customers yet. You are buying the install.

Checkout is on Whop. Operator is Nico. United States offer. You can revoke collaborator access after handoff. We do not take owner passwords.