soft decline
Recoverable failure type.
hard decline
A hard decline is a payment failure suggesting a non-recoverable issue — card closed, fraud suspected, lost or stolen card. The card itself is invalid; retries won't help. The customer must update their payment method or the subscription ends. Recovers at ~15% on average; the recovery is the customer manually updating, not the email itself.
In context.
Porchops treats hard declines with the no-pressure approach. Lou drafts a factual, no-urgency note: "Your card couldn't be processed; here's a payment-update link." No retries are scheduled (Stripe knows hard declines aren't retry-recoverable).
The 15% recovery rate is mostly customers who would have updated their card anyway — the email is a reminder, not a save play. Most hard declines that recover do so within 30 days; after that, the customer has moved on.
Concrete instances.
card_declined — generic hard decline; bank refused for unspecified reason.
fraud_suspected — bank flagged the transaction; customer needs to call their bank or update card.
lost_card or stolen_card — card was reported lost/stolen; customer needs to update with their new card.
card_not_supported — customer's card doesn't support recurring charges.
Common questions.
What's the hard-decline recovery rate?
~15% on average. Most hard declines recover when the customer updates their card; the email exists as a reminder. Don't expect aggressive recovery from this bucket.
What tone works for hard-decline emails?
Factual, no-urgency. "Your card couldn't be processed; here's a payment-update link." Don't push, don't apologize, don't manufacture urgency. Customers respond to clear instructions.
Does Card Account Updater help here?
Yes for some (lost/stolen replacements where the issuer enrolled the new card). Not for fraud-suspected or card-not-supported declines. Enable it; it catches roughly half of the recoverable hard declines automatically.