Billing charge declined

What happens when your monthly Ordinary billing charge fails, and how to recover.

Ordinary Written by The Ordinary Team · Updated

Billing charge declined

If your monthly charge for Ordinary fails, here’s what happens and how to recover.

Billing is handled by Shopify for most plans

On Free, Starter, and Advanced plans, billing is handled by Shopify’s Managed Pricing — same payment method as your Shopify subscription.

On Enterprise, billing is direct via Stripe invoice; different flow.

What happens on a failed charge (Shopify plans)

  1. Day 0 — Shopify attempts to charge your payment method on your subscription renewal date. If it fails (card expired, insufficient funds, fraud flag), Shopify marks the charge as failed.
  2. You get notified — Shopify sends you an email. Ordinary also shows a banner at the top of the app: “Your Ordinary subscription charge failed — update your payment method.”
  3. Grace period — Shopify retries the charge for up to 7 days. During grace, Ordinary continues to function normally.
  4. Day 8+ — if still unpaid, Shopify cancels the subscription. Ordinary downgrades you to Free tier. All data remains in our DB; reports still work within the 30-day Free lookback; paid-tier features become read-only or hidden.

How to fix it

Step 1 — update your Shopify payment method

  1. Open your Shopify admin.
  2. Go to Settings → Billing.
  3. Click Update payment method.
  4. Add a valid credit card or update the existing one.

Once updated, Shopify will automatically retry the Ordinary charge within a few minutes. You’ll see a success banner in Ordinary once it goes through.

Step 2 — force an immediate retry (if needed)

If Shopify’s automatic retry hasn’t fired after updating your card:

  1. In Shopify admin: Settings → Apps → Ordinary → Manage.
  2. Click Retry failed charge.

Step 3 — if you were downgraded to Free

If enough time passed that Shopify cancelled the subscription:

  1. Update the Shopify payment method (Step 1).
  2. In Ordinary: Settings → Billing → Upgrade to Starter (or the tier you were on).
  3. Approve the new subscription in Shopify’s billing dialog.

Your historical data is intact. Reports that require Starter+ will re-enable immediately after payment approval.

For Enterprise (Stripe invoice) plans

Different flow:

  • Invoices are emailed to your billing contact with Net 14 terms (or whatever your contract specifies).
  • A late invoice generates a reminder at Day 15, 20, 25.
  • After Day 30 past-due, we’ll email your primary contact before any service impact.
  • Service is never auto-terminated for past-due Enterprise. We’ll talk to you first.

To update the Stripe payment method for Enterprise, reply to any invoice email or contact sales@tryordinary.com.

”Charge declined” but my card is fine

Occasionally Shopify’s fraud detection blocks a legitimate charge. Check:

  • Card expiration date (even if it looks fine, sometimes bank rotated the number).
  • Bank hold — a new, non-recurring charge can trigger a hold on some cards. Call the bank to whitelist it.
  • Billing address matches your card’s registered address in Shopify.

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