The label distinguishes payment-related losses from recorded cancellations by the subscriber. Billing records show the sequence of events; they do not necessarily establish what the reader wanted. (Stripe Smart Retries documentation ↗)
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Waiting for the recovery outcome
Neutral sequence: a renewal payment fails, retries occur under the configured plan, and the subscription later ends. Count the loss only when the reporting rule’s final event occurs, such as cancellation; a failed attempt or pending retry is not yet that event. This describes billing sequence, not the reader’s intent.
A failed attempt is not yet a lost member
Keep failed attempts, accounts still in recovery and subscriptions that have ended as separate states. Otherwise, a successful retry may appear as a new customer gain after a loss that never actually occurred.
Follow the outcome after the failed attempt
Mark a failed charge when it happens, then record whether a later attempt recovered it. Counting every failure as a lost subscriber can make payment problems look worse than they are. Check access separately so a recovered payment and a recovered reader are both visible.
In this illustration, 25 people have lost access after payment failure. The 10 still unpaid require follow-up and can change the final count.
| Outcome | Subscribers |
|---|---|
| Payment recovered | 65 |
| Still unpaid, access remains | 10 |
| Access ended after payment failure | 25 |