Failed payments and declines
Why a customer's card was declined, how to tell a bank decline from a problem in your own setup, and what to do about each.
- Who can do this
- Owner, Admin
- Plan availability
- Compare current packages
- Last checked
- September 20, 2026
What this does
Shows payment attempts that did not end in money arriving, so you can tell whether one customer's bank said no or something in your store is stopping everybody.
Before you start
A connected payment processor, and at least one failed attempt to look at.
Steps
- Open Analytics and find Payment attempts.
- Compare attempts against paid. A handful of failures out of many attempts is normal — banks decline cards every day for reasons neither you nor Torva can see.
- Look at whether the failures share a reason. Several different reasons is ordinary. Many attempts failing for the same reason points at a setting.
What happens next
Nothing is charged for a failed attempt. The customer can try again with another card, and the order stays unpaid until one succeeds.
Common problems
One customer says their card keeps failing. Almost always their bank. Ask them to try another card, or use one of your pay-by-app methods if you offer them.
A lot of failures started at once. Check your processor's own dashboard first — it will say if your account has a problem. Then check whether your store's currency matches what your processor is set up to take.
Orders are placed but never paid. Those are people who reached the last step and stopped. That is a checkout problem rather than a card problem.
Still stuck?
Ask Torva from inside your account. It knows everything in this article and can also see what your own store is currently doing, so it can answer for your situation rather than in general.