We continually attempt to charge declined members during the month of their decline. Please note that a member will only ever have one declined bill. If they decline once, we will not continue to charge them for future months. Instead, they will be restricted from viewing member-only content until they pay for their past-due bill.
They are essentially not a member for future months until they've successfully paid the past-due bill. Once the membership is paid for, they will regain access to your member-only feed.
To do our best to collect past-due bills, we:
- Retry processing payments up to six times within the month they declined
- Email members to let them know there was an issue with billing and instructions to update their payment info
- Place a banner on their Patreon page prompting them to update payment info
- Restrict access to member-only content until past-due bills are collected
Your Audience Relationship Manager lets you view each member's status and send messages to those who have declined. We automatically email members about updating payment information when their payments decline, but personal messages can provide a helpful and effective reminder to members. If you want to reduce declines, consider sending a personal note.
You can review your monthly declines by visiting your Earnings dashboard. It's important to note that if you view this dashboard at the beginning of a month, the current month's decline rate typically exceeds the rate from prior months. This is normal. The overall decline rate is typically high in the first few days of the month and falls over time as we retry payments and encourage members to update their payment methods.
If you feel a member is evading payment, you can also block them, which deletes their membership and prevents them from messaging you, accessing your member-only content, or joining your Patreon again in the future.
