How many times can I manually retry a subscription charge?

You can charge a subscription manually whenever you need to. Each card accepts up to 5 declined attempts in 24 hours and up to 12 in 30 days, adding up your manual charges and the automatic retries. Approved charges don't count.

This cap protects your business: it looks after your reputation with issuing banks and keeps you clear of card network penalties. It applies in the same way to every business.

How attempts are counted

• Up to 5 declined attempts in 24 hours on the same card.

• Up to 12 declined attempts in 30 days on the same card.

• Every declined attempt counts: your manual charges from the dashboard or the API, the automatic retries, and the charges of each cycle.

• The cap is counted per card, not per subscription. If the same card pays for two subscriptions, the declines of both add up.

• Both windows are rolling: they count backward from the moment of each attempt.

Our automatic retries follow a fixed schedule of 4 retries over 10 days, so they also count toward the cap. See How retry logic works.

How to retry a charge manually

From the dashboard, open the subscription and process the charge. A confirmation window opens, where you set the next charge date and confirm.

Through the API, use POST /v3/subscriptions/{id}/pay.

A manual charge doesn't use up the automatic retries: those keep their own schedule.

What happens when the card reaches the cap

We don't send the charge to the bank: we hold it beforehand so it doesn't add another decline. The card becomes available again on its own, as soon as the oldest decline leaves the window.

In the dashboard, a notification tells you that the payment couldn't be processed because the attempt limit for the last 30 days was reached, and shows the date and time when you can try again, in your local time.

Through the API, the response is a 400 with a message like this one:

For the 24-hour window, the message says "5 in the last 24 hours (maximum 5)". In the API, the date is in UTC: convert it to your time zone (for example, in Argentina it's 3 hours earlier).

In automatic charges, if the card is at the cap when the charge date arrives, we reschedule the attempt for the next day.

Why this cap exists

• Your reputation with issuing banks. Every declined attempt on a card is recorded. When a business insists too much, banks start treating its charges with more caution, and that also affects the customers who do pay.

• Temporary holds by the bank. After too many attempts in a row, the issuing bank can hold the card for 24 to 72 hours and decline any charge during that time, even a legitimate one.

• Card network rules. Visa and Mastercard set caps on retries and apply penalties to those who exceed them.

It applies since October 1, 2026, in the same way to every business, because it follows the card network rules.

What you can do when a card reaches the cap

1. Wait for the date shown in the message. No action is needed for the card to become available again.

2. If the declines are due to insufficient funds, ask your customer to update their payment method. From the subscription details in your dashboard, you can send them the link to change their card.

3. If your customer adds a new card, you can charge it right away. The cap is per card, so a different card starts from zero.

4. Avoid retrying after definitive declines, such as a card reported stolen, blocked or lost. Those declines don't resolve with more attempts.

Need help?

If the message appears on a card with no recent declines, or an automatic charge wasn't rescheduled after the date shown, contact us at support@rebill.com with the subscription ID (it starts with sub_).