Subscriptions renew according to the renewal settings that are configured for the subscription. It's important to understand these settings, as they will dictate how the subscription is renewed. You can learn more about these settings in our article about Renewal Settings with Subscriptions.
When working with renewals, there are a couple of aspects to bear in mind:
Customers will be able to book past renewal date
It's worth noting that customers will be able to book events that occur after the renewal date. This means that a customer will be able to book an event after a renewal date in the future before we know whether the renewal payment will be successful or not.
What happens when a renewal fails
When a renewal fails, we will attempt to charge the customer again according to the schedule set in your general settings under "Membership renewals" (see screenshot below).
Also, depending on your settings, we will cancel or maintain the customer's future bookings if a renewal fails. This is an important consideration, as it will impact how you manage subscriptions that have failed to renew. If you choose to maintain the customer's future bookings, they will still be able to attend events that they have already booked, even if their subscription has failed to renew. However, they may not be able to book future events until the payment issue is resolved.
Inactive memberships will not auto-renew
When working with subscriptions that activate on first use, as per the membership settings, it's worth considering that we will attempt to renew a membership only after a membership has become active according to the membership renewal settings. This means that, if a subscription remains inactive, meaning the first class hasn't been booked yet, we will not attempt to charge a renewal.
Membership renewals with Direct Debits
Membership renewals work slightly different when it comes to Direct Debits payments such as ACH, BACS, and BECS. Because these payment methods are asynchronous, meaning that we don't know whether the payment was successful or not immediately as it is for cards, we will keep the membership active after the renewal date without knowing whether the payment was successful or not. This means that renewals that were fulfilled using a direct debit payment may fail days after the expected renewal date.