Payments & Collection
When a payment fails
The retry schedule, what the member is told, and the point at which Gorilla Dash stops trying.
Last updated September 2, 2026
Cards get declined, expire and get cancelled. Gorilla Dash retries on a schedule, tells the member, and then stops — and that last part is the bit worth knowing.
What happens, in order
- The charge is declined. A Failed Payment row is written to the ledger for the record — it is a zero-amount audit entry and does not change the balance.
- If the member has other saved cards, the next one is tried immediately.
- The member is emailed Your membership payment did not go through, with a button to update their details.
- It retries after 3 days, then 5, then 7.
- After four failed days it stops, and the member gets Action needed: we could not process your membership payment.
It stops permanently
Getting them going again
Adding a new card resets the count and triggers a collection attempt immediately — so does a successful payment. That is the whole fix: get a working card on the account, by asking the member to use the link in their email or by requesting their details.
Failures that are not the member's fault
If the problem is your own gateway configuration rather than their card, the attempt is not counted against the retry ladder and the member is not emailed. They never see your setup problems.
Emails are throttled
A member gets at most one failed-payment email a day, however many cards were tried.