What happens when a payment fails?

Credit cards sometimes decline unexpectedly. When a payment fails, CloudCannon gives you time to fix it before changing your Subscription.

After a failed payment, CloudCannon retries the charge several times over the following weeks. During that time, your Subscription stays active and your Sites keep working. If every retry fails, CloudCannon puts your Subscription on hold. If your Subscription stays on hold for a prolonged period, CloudCannon cancels it automatically.

Payment warning states#

When there is a payment issue, CloudCannon shows a warning banner on your Subscription page with a Review payment button. You might see:

• Additional confirmation needed — The banner reads Your bank has requested additional confirmation. Your payment needs an extra verification step, such as 3D Secure.
• Payment failed — The banner reads Your payment has failed. Your card was declined.
• Subscription on hold — The banner reads Your CloudCannon Subscription is on hold due to a payment issue. CloudCannon could not collect payment after several attempts.

In each of these cases, you can click the Review payment button to resolve the issue.

A Subscription that is on hold after a failed payment is different from a paused Subscription. If your Free Trial ends without a payment method on file, CloudCannon pauses your Subscription and you see a banner noting that your trial period has ended.

What happens when your Subscription is on hold#

When your Subscription is on hold because of failed payments:

• You cannot open or edit your Sites, and most pages will show a Billing issue message that points you to the payment problem.
• CloudCannon will stop hosting content on your Custom Domains and Testing Domains and show an error message instead.

Visitors to your hosted websites see an unavailable page until you resolve the payment issue.

What you can still do while on hold#

Even while your Subscription is on hold, you can still retrieve your content or move it elsewhere. From a Site's settings, you can still:

• Download a backup of your Site files.
• Transfer a Site to another Organization.
• Delete a Site.
• Manage your custom domains.
• Manage Site Sharing and Client Sharing.
• Manage Site Mountings.

Each of these actions still requires the relevant Site settings permission.

Backups are download-only. CloudCannon does not restore a Site from a backup for you — download the backup to keep a copy of your files, or get your content from your connected Git repository. A backup must already exist for you to download it.

Resume a Subscription on hold#

To resume your Subscription after a payment failure:

1. Navigate to the Subscription page under Org Settings.
2. Click the Review payment button in the warning banner.
3. Add a new card or update your existing payment method.
4. Click the Confirm payment button.

CloudCannon reactivates your Organization and restores access to your Sites and hosted websites.

If your Subscription stays on hold#

If you do not resolve the payment issue, CloudCannon eventually cancels your Subscription automatically. When your Subscription is canceled:

• Your saved credit cards stay on file, so you can resubscribe quickly.
• You must resubscribe to a Subscription Plan to use CloudCannon again.
• Your Sites and files are not deleted.

To start paying again, return to the Subscription page and select a Subscription Plan. Please read our documentation on updating your Subscription Plan for the steps, and on canceling your Subscription for how a canceled Subscription differs from one that is on hold, including that canceling manually removes your saved credit cards.

For more information, please read our documentation on managing your payment methods. If your payment issue persists after you update your card, contact our support team with your Organization name.