Failed Payment Recovery retries a failed subscription payment on a schedule. With Fixed schedule, every retry is the same number of days apart. A Phased campaign splits the schedule into stages, so you can retry quickly at first and then give the customer more time.
Prefer video? Watch How to Set Up a Phased Payment Recovery for Subscriptions (2 minutes).
Set up a phased campaign
Go to More > Failed Payment Recovery.
On the Strategy tab, in the Recovery method card, make sure Enable payment retries is on.
Select Phased campaign.
Set up your phases and choose what happens If every attempt fails.
Save your changes.
How a phase works
Each phase has three settings:
Attempts: how many payment attempts the phase makes. In phase 1, this includes the original charge on the billing date.
Interval (days): how many days Appstle waits before each retry in this phase.
Active: untick it to switch a phase off without deleting it.
Phases run in order. When a phase's attempts are used up, the next phase starts. Select Add phase to add another stage. Under your phases, a summary line shows how many phases are active, the total number of attempts and how many days the campaign spans.
An example
Say you set up two phases:
Phase 1: 2 attempts, 1 day apart. Retry quickly while the problem is likely temporary.
Phase 2: 3 attempts, 5 days apart. Give the customer time to add funds or update their card.
If the payment keeps failing, this is what happens:
Day 0: The charge on the billing date fails (attempt 1, phase 1).
Day 1: Retry (attempt 2, phase 1).
Day 6: Retry (attempt 3, phase 2).
Day 11: Retry (attempt 4, phase 2).
Day 16: Final retry (attempt 5, phase 2).
That's 5 payment attempts in total: the original charge plus 4 retries, over 16 days. The summary line under your phases says the same: 2 active phases, 5 total attempts, spans 16 days. The Recovery schedule below your settings shows the same days. As soon as an attempt succeeds, the campaign stops.
When every attempt fails
Appstle applies your If every attempt fails choice. It's the same setting Fixed schedule uses:
Skip this order, keep the subscription active (recommended): the unpaid order is skipped and the next order is charged on its usual date.
Pause the subscription: no further orders are charged until the subscription is resumed.
Cancel the subscription: the subscription is cancelled and no further orders are charged.
Good to know
A phase 1 with 1 attempt has no retries of its own. It's only the original charge. When you first select Phased campaign, Appstle adds a starter phase with 1 attempt, so add attempts or another phase to get retries.
Customer emails work the same way. The first failed charge always sends the payment failed email, unless you turn that email off. Email the customer after each failed retry controls the emails after that.
Recovery discounts work with phases. You can attach a discount to any failed payment that a retry follows. See Recovery discounts in Appstle Subscriptions.
Only the method you select runs. Your Fixed schedule settings stay saved while a phased campaign runs. If you switch back to Fixed schedule and save, your phases are removed.
See how it performs
On the Results tab, Retry success by attempt shows which attempts actually collect payment, and the Attempt count filter lets you look at one attempt at a time. Use them to fine-tune your phases. For a walkthrough, watch How to Monitor Failed Payment Recovery for Subscriptions.
Availability
Phased campaign is included in the Business Premium, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus plans. On other plans it shows a Premium lock. To compare plans, go to Billing.
For an overview of every recovery setting, see Failed Payment Recovery in Appstle Subscriptions.