Skip to main content
The Failed Payment Flow is a dunning sequence that automatically emails subscribers whose card or payment method fails during renewal. It gives them time and reminders to update their payment information before losing access. Stripe handles the card retries and can send its own dunning emails during the retry window; Outpost’s flow runs alongside Stripe’s retries so the two recover more subscriptions together than retries alone. The two windows need to overlap: see Configure Stripe retries first below before enabling the flow.
Failed Payment Flow page showing the master toggle, statistics panel, and a 5-step timeline of dunning emails with sent, opened, and updated rates

The Failed Payment Flow page showing the 5-step email sequence with stats

Go to Autoresponder → Failed Payment Flow to configure it.

​
Configure Stripe retries first

Stripe handles the actual card retries. Outpost runs alongside that retry window and sends the dunning emails. Before turning the Failed Payment Flow on, set two things in your Stripe dashboard’s subscription billing settings: 1. Set the retry window longer than your Outpost flow. You can’t collect on a subscription that’s already been cancelled, so Stripe needs to keep retrying the card for at least one day longer than the Outpost flow (two or three days longer is safer). You can use Stripe’s Smart Retries (recommended) or a custom retry schedule; either is fine as long as the window outlasts Outpost’s flow. 2. Set “After all retries have failed” to Cancel the subscription.
On the same Stripe settings page, find the option for what should happen after retries are exhausted and set it to Cancel the subscription. When retries run out, Outpost does not cancel the subscription in Stripe. If Stripe is set to Mark the subscription as unpaid or Leave the subscription past-due, the subscriber keeps paid access in Ghost after the retries stop, until you cancel the subscription in Stripe yourself.
For a fuller walk-through with screenshots, see Setting up your Failed Payment Retention Flow on the Outpost blog.

​
How it works

When a subscriber’s payment fails during renewal:
1

Subscriber keeps access

The subscriber keeps paid access while Stripe retries the payment, giving them time to fix the issue.
2

Dunning emails begin

Outpost sends a series of up to 5 emails across the flow duration encouraging the subscriber to update their payment method. The first email goes out as soon as the flow starts, and the rest follow at regular intervals, leaving a gap at the end. With all 5 steps enabled over 7 days, emails go out at roughly day 0, 1.2, 2.3, 3.5, and 4.7. If you disable some steps, the remaining ones automatically redistribute with wider spacing.
3

Subscriber updates payment

If the subscriber updates their payment method and the renewal succeeds, the remaining emails are cancelled automatically. A “thank you” email is sent (if you have it turned on), which is configured in the Retention and Renewal tab of the Basic Autoresponder.
4

Flow ends

The flow ends and the subscription expires:
  • The flow duration expires without a successful payment update and the Stripe period for retry ends, or
  • You explicitly cancel the member’s subscription in Stripe, or
  • You disable the retention flow
When the flow expires without a payment update, Outpost ends the flow and adds a dated label to the member in Ghost so you can find these subscribers later (see the frequently asked questions). Paid access ends when Stripe cancels the subscription, which is why the Stripe setting above matters.

​
Subscribers picked up by the daily check

Most subscribers enter the flow the moment Stripe reports the failed renewal. Outpost also runs a check once a day for subscriptions that have been past due or unpaid for three to ten days, and starts the flow for any of those subscribers who aren’t in the flow and haven’t finished it in the last 10 days. A subscriber picked up this way starts at step one, and the sequence is timed from the day they were picked up rather than from the day the payment failed. Everything else is the same. The emails, your Start and Duration settings, the Activity Log entry and the “Failed Payment Retention started” notification all work as they do for any other subscriber, so there’s nothing to set up and nothing new to switch on. The check leaves out subscribers it shouldn’t email: anyone who already has an active subscription, anyone in the flow or who finished it in the last 10 days, and anyone billed by invoice, which is how institutional and enterprise subscriptions are handled. It also runs only on sites that have the Failed Payment Flow turned on with at least one enabled step.
This flow does not apply to subscribers who manually turned off auto-renewal. It only targets genuine payment failures (expired card, insufficient funds, cancelled card, etc.).

​
Who gets the reminders

The failed-payment reminders are Account emails, because the member has to act to keep their subscription. Members who turned off promotional emails still get them. A reader can stop the reminders only for the current failed payment, using the “Stop reminders about this payment” link in the email footer. If a later payment fails, they get the reminders again. See Email preferences for everything a reader can stop.

​
Requirements

The Failed Payment Flow requires an active Stripe billing integration. If your site doesn’t have Stripe billing set up, the flow cannot be enabled and you’ll see a message directing you to configure Stripe.

​
The Big Off/On Button

Like the Basic Autoresponder, the Failed Payment Flow has its own master toggle. When turned off, no dunning emails will be sent to subscribers with failed payments.
Big On Off Button

​
Statistics

The statistics panel shows lifetime performance data:

​
The 5-step sequence

The flow contains 5 pre-built email steps displayed as a visual timeline. Each step shows:
  • Subject line: Click to edit the email content
  • Stats: Emails sent, open rate, and “Updated” rate (percentage who updated their payment after this email)
  • Toggle: Enable or disable individual steps
  • Preview: Click the eye icon to see how the email will look
  • Edit: Click the pencil icon to modify the subject and body
The emails are automatically spaced across the flow duration as described above. Disabling steps causes the remaining enabled steps to redistribute with wider spacing.
Each email contains a special button that links directly to the subscriber’s payment update page. Do not edit the links on these buttons. They are auto-generated and work specifically for each subscriber’s failed payment. They will not work in preview mode, but they do work in the actual emails.

​
Settings

Click the “edit” link next to the flow heading, or click on the day badges at the start or end of the timeline to open the Settings modal: For example, with Start set to “Immediately” and Duration set to “7 days,” all 5 emails are distributed across the 7-day window, with roughly 28 hours between each email.

​
Editing email content

Click any subject line or the pencil icon to edit a dunning email:
  • Subject: The email subject line
  • Body: Rich text editor for the email content
You can also send a test email to yourself by clicking the eye icon (preview) and then “Send Test Email.”

​
Frequently asked questions

The subscriber keeps full access to paid content while Stripe retries the card. If they don’t update their payment method before the retries run out, Stripe cancels the subscription and paid access stops.
No. The Failed Payment Flow is a fixed 5-step sequence. You can enable or disable individual steps, and you can edit the subject and body of each email, but you cannot add or remove steps.
The remaining emails (steps 3, 4, and 5) are automatically cancelled. The subscriber receives a “thank you” email via the Failed Payment Flow Thank You action in the Retention and Renewal tab of the Basic Autoresponder (if you have that turned on). You can customize that email just like any other autoresponder action.
When the flow ends without a successful payment update, Outpost adds a label to the subscriber in Ghost: ZZZ_Failed_Payment_Ended_Subscription_ followed by the date, for example ZZZ_Failed_Payment_Ended_Subscription_2026-09-30. To find these subscribers, for example to send a win-back email, filter your Ghost Members list by that label. Each date is a separate label in Ghost, so pick the dates you want.If the subscriber uses one of the flow’s emails to update their payment and the renewal succeeds, Outpost adds ZZZ_Retention_Payment_Continue_Subscription_ plus the date instead.Every member whose last paid subscription ends, for any reason, also gets a Former_Paid_Subscriber label, which is removed if they start paying again. That label doesn’t tell you why someone left, but the failed payment label does.
Most publishers use “Immediately” for Start and “7 days” for Duration. This gives subscribers a week to update their payment while receiving 5 emails spread across that week. Shorter durations create more urgency; longer durations give more time but risk the subscriber forgetting.
Outpost checks once a day for subscriptions that have been past due or unpaid for three to ten days, and starts the flow for any of those subscribers who aren’t in the flow and haven’t finished it in the last 10 days. The sequence starts at step one and is timed from the day the subscriber was picked up, so their emails run later than they would for a subscriber who entered the flow the moment the renewal failed. The Activity Log entry and the “Failed Payment Retention started” notification look the same either way.
In your Stripe subscription settings, set the retry window to at least one day longer than your Outpost flow duration (two to three days is safer), and set the “after all retries fail” option to Cancel the subscription. See Configure Stripe retries first for the full walk-through.
The statistics panel at the top of the page shows Revenue recovered (first payment only): the total amount collected from subscribers who updated their payment method through this flow.

Autoresponder

The main autoresponder with 71 pre-built email actions.

Email Templates

Create and customize email templates