What Happens If My Zibster Payment Fails?
Zibster automatically attempts to charge the credit card on file for your membership on your renewal date, whether you are on a monthly or annual plan. If a payment fails, your account is not shut down immediately. A built-in 14-day grace period allows time to resolve billing issues while the system retries the charge. For annual memberships, Zibster may attempt to convert the account to monthly billing to help prevent downtime. This article explains how payment retries work and what happens at each stage.
Understand How Membership Charges Work
Zibster attempts to charge the credit card on file on your membership renewal date. Renewals occur monthly or annually depending on your plan.
If the charge is successful, a confirmation email is sent to the email address used to log into your Zibster account. All receipts and past charges are available in your Billing History.
What Happens After the First Failed Payment
If your card is declined on the renewal date, your account enters a 14-day grace period. Your website and services remain active during this time.
An automatic email notification is sent to your login email address informing you that the charge was attempted and declined. After the first failed attempt, the system waits seven days before retrying the charge.
You can log into your Zibster account at any time during the grace period to update your credit card information or manually retry the payment.
Second and Third Payment Attempts
Seven days after the first failed attempt, Zibster automatically tries to process the membership charge again.
If the card fails a second time, another email notification is sent. The system then waits an additional seven days before making a third attempt.
For annual memberships, Zibster automatically attempts to convert the account to monthly billing on the third attempt. This is intended to process a smaller charge and help avoid website downtime when possible.
Standby Status, Reactivation, and Pricing Changes
If the third payment attempt fails, your website will go offline and your account will be placed into standby status once the 14-day grace period ends.
You can reactivate your account at any time within 180 days (six months) from the standby date. Once payment is successfully processed, your website and services are reinstated.
If your account had custom or grandfathered pricing and it goes offline, reactivating the account will reset the membership to standard pricing available at the time of reactivation. Custom pricing is not automatically restored after an account enters standby.
Helpful Notes
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You can update your credit card information or retry the charge at any time from your Zibster account dashboard.
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Payment receipts and confirmation emails are always available in your Billing History.
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Contacting your bank may help resolve declines related to authorization issues or fraud protection.
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To avoid pricing changes, update your billing information during the grace period before the account goes offline.
Troubleshooting / FAQs
Will my website go offline immediately after a failed payment?
No. Your website remains active throughout the 14-day grace period and is only taken offline after the final failed attempt.
What happens if my annual payment fails but the monthly conversion succeeds?
If the account successfully converts to monthly billing and the payment is processed, your account remains active without interruption.
