Reattempt failed recurring payments with Subscribe buttons

A recurring payment fails if funds cannot be moved from the subscriber's PayPal account to your own. PayPal by default reattempts the failed payment a couple of times, then cancels the subscription if it continues to fail.

How reattempts on failed recurring payments work

To avoid overlapping payments, a reattempt will not occur if another subscription payment is scheduled within 14 days of the failed payment. Otherwise, PayPal reattempts a recurring payment three days after the recurring payment failed. If this first reattempt fails, PayPal waits 5 days to reattempt a second time. If the second reattempt fails, PayPal cancels the subscription.

Reattempt example

Subscription terms:

Bob signs up for the subscription on Feb. 12.

Override reattempt default in HTML button code

To override the default reattempt payment setting, you can specify the sra HTML variable with the value set to 0. Only use this setting if you do not want PayPal to reattempt the failed payment.

To override the default reattempt payment setting, you can specify the Subscribe: sample HTML button code HTML variable with the value set to

See also

For information on PayPal subscribe buttons, see subscribe button basic payment options.