Subscription Grace Period & Past-Due State

What "past_due" Means

When a recurring charge fails (expired card, insufficient funds, a bank block), Paddle flags your subscription as past_due. At that moment:

• Your license keeps working immediately after the failure — we don't yank access mid-show.
• A red banner appears at the top of your account dashboard with an "Update payment" action.
• Paddle automatically retries the charge three times over the following week.

The Grace Window

You have a 7-day grace period from the first failed attempt before features start to lock out. During the grace window:

• All desktop features continue to work normally.
• Your license key remains valid for offline verification (up to the 7-day offline cap that applies to every subscription).
• You can update your payment method at any time from the dashboard — once it succeeds, the subscription flips back to active and the retry cycle stops.

After the Grace Window

If all three retries fail and you haven't updated the payment method:

1. The subscription transitions to paused.
2. The desktop app drops into read-only mode on the next online check — you can still open CueSync, browse your shows, and audit your rig, but new cues cannot fire to protocols.
3. You'll receive one more email reminder with a direct payment-update link.

Recovering From Past-Due

From your dashboard:

1. Open Billing → Update payment method.
2. Enter new card details (or a PayPal / other Paddle-supported method).
3. Paddle charges the outstanding invoice immediately. Your subscription flips back to active within seconds.

If the recovery charge also fails, Paddle will keep retrying over the next week — you don't have to do anything after successfully adding a valid method.

Step-Up Authentication

Updating the payment method does not require re-entering your password — that action is read-oriented from Paddle's portal. Cancelling, resuming, or changing plans does require step-up re-auth (see Step-Up Authentication).

Still Stuck?

Contact support if:

• You've updated the card but the subscription stays past_due for more than 30 minutes.
• You received the pause email but your desktop app still works (this shouldn't happen — please report it).
• Your card is being declined but your bank says no block is in place.