Payment Retries: 3 Attempts and a 7-Day Grace Period
Learn what dunning is, why recurring payments fail, card network retry limits for Visa and Mastercard, and how Cifrago's 3-retry schedule will work.
A recurring payment can fail due to insufficient funds, an expired card, or a bank authentication request. *Dunning* is the process of retrying the charge and notifying the customer before cutting off access. Cifrago retries three times—at 1, 3, and 5 days after the initial failure—and includes a 7-day grace period.
Note: Cifrago is in its final development phase and is not accepting new merchants yet. Recurring payments are coming soon; this article explains how they will work.
Why recurring payments fail
- Insufficient funds at the time of the charge.
- Expired card or card replaced by the bank.
- Strong Customer Authentication (SCA/3D Secure) requested by the bank that the customer fails to complete.
- Hard declines: stolen card, closed account, etc. Retrying in these cases makes no sense.
How many retries card networks allow
| Network | Limit | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Visa | Up to 20 retries in 30 days per card for retryable declines starting May 19, 2025 (previously 15). "Never approve" declines cannot be retried | Checkout.com · PayPal |
| Mastercard | Charges a fee after 10 failed attempts on the same card within 24 hours, and another for resubmitting a decline marked as "do not retry" within 30 days | TD notice, April 2026 (PDF) |
Exceeding these limits results in fees for the merchant. Cifrago's 3 retries stay well below both thresholds.
How dunning will work in Cifrago
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| Renewal fails | The subscription switches to past_due status |
| Retries | At 1, 3, and 5 days after the failure. Each attempt is a new payment with its own idempotency key, preventing double charges |
| Customer access | Retained until the end of the paid period plus a 7-day grace period |
| If recovery fails | The subscription expires and the subscription.expired webhook is sent |
| Merchant notifications | Webhooks signed with HMAC-SHA256 (X-Cifrago-Signature header). If your server fails to respond, delivery is retried after 1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour, and every 6 hours up to 24 hours |
We do not publish recovery rates because we do not have our own live data yet.
Frequently asked questions
What is dunning?
It is the process of recovering a failed recurring payment: retrying the charge across different days, alerting the customer to update their card details, and, if it cannot be recovered, canceling the subscription gracefully rather than cutting off access abruptly.
How many times will Cifrago retry a failed payment?
Three times: at 1, 3, and 5 days after the initial failure. Each attempt is a new payment with its own idempotency key. Cifrago's recurring payments are coming soon; the platform is currently not accepting new merchants.
Does a customer lose access as soon as a payment fails?
No. They retain access until the end of the period already paid for, plus a 7-day grace period. If none of the retries succeed during that window, the subscription expires and your system receives the subscription.expired webhook.
How many payment retries does Visa allow?
Starting May 19, 2025, up to 20 retries within 30 days per card for retryable declines. Declines flagged as "never approve" must not be retried.
Building subscriptions?
Check the pricing and try the dashboard with sample data before integrating anything.