Subscription failed email flow

Reach subscribers whose contract has become Failed with the Roadmap: Subscription failed metric, and bring them back with a reactivation path.

A contract becomes Failed when every payment retry is exhausted (or a merchant marks it Failed manually). The subscriber usually still wants the product: this flow is the last, most valuable recovery touch. A failed contract can be reactivated in the customers dashboard or via the admin panel.

Klaviyo event name

• Roadmap: Subscription failed: fires when a contract enters the Failed status.

Event properties

The full contract snapshot, plus:

Extra property	What it holds
failed_at_date	when the contract failed

Recommended flow structure

1. Trigger: Roadmap: Subscription failed

2. Email 1, immediately: the subscription is on hold, with the fix: update payment, then reactivate. Failed contracts can be reactivated from the customer dashboard once payment is sorted.

3. Email 2, a few days later: a nudge with an incentive if they haven't recovered, since at this point you're saving a customer, not just a payment.

Strategy

• Name the product, not the problem. "Your Labs Protein deliveries are paused" motivates; "contract failed" doesn't.

• Provide the customer steps to fix their subscription. If the card is dead, the fastest fix is update payment then reactivate: link both steps.

• Watch this flow's volume. A spike usually means a dunning or payment gateway issue, so check the retry settings before assuming customer churn.

Related guides

• Payment failed email flow: the earlier, per-attempt flow

• Marking a subscription as Failed