Subscription Behavior After Dunning Cycle Ends

When a subscription invoice fails and enters dunning, Recurly will attempt payment retries according to your configured Dunning Campaign.

At the end of the dunning cycle, you must define what happens to the subscription and the invoice. This article explains exactly what occurs based on your configuration.

Available End-of-Dunning Options

At the end of a Dunning Campaign, you can configure:

Subscription

• Expire the subscription
• Leave the subscription active

Invoice

• The invoice is marked as Failed if payment was not recovered.

If You Select "Expire the Subscription"

• The subscription state changes to expired.
• The failed invoice remains in a failed state.
• No future renewal invoices will be generated.
• The customer must reactivate the subscription to resume service.

If You Select "Leave the Subscription Active"

• The subscription remains in the active state.
• The invoice is marked failed.
• No additional automatic retries occur after the campaign ends.
• No new renewal invoice is generated until the next billing cycle.

Leaving the subscription active does not mean Recurly will continue retrying indefinitely. The retry schedule ends with the campaign.

What Happens If the Customer Updates Payment After Dunning?

Updating billing information alone does not automatically:

• Reactivate an expired subscription
• Trigger a new invoice
• Automatically retry a failed invoice

To recover revenue after dunning has ended, you must:

• Manually retry the failed invoice, or
• Reactivate the subscription (if expired), or
• Trigger billing via API.

Common Misconceptions

“If the customer updates their card, the subscription will restart automatically.”

Not necessarily. If the subscription expired, it must be manually reactivated. If it remained active, the failed invoice must still be retried.

“Leave Active means billing will keep retrying.”

Incorrect. Retry attempts end when the Dunning Campaign completes.

“Pause happens automatically after dunning.”

Recurly does not natively pause subscriptions at the end of dunning. Pause behavior must be configured separately or handled via API.

Best Practices

• Clearly define whether you want subscriptions to expire or remain active.
• Align subscription state behavior with your product access control logic.
• Train support teams on post-dunning recovery workflows.
• Consider automation via API if you require dynamic recovery flows.