First, work out which payment failed — there are two completely separate systems and the fix is different for each.
A customer paying you — a deposit, a checkout, a no-show fee. Goes through your Stripe account.
You paying Styler — your subscription. Goes through our billing.
👀 These get confused constantly. "My payment failed" means very different things depending on which direction the money was going.
A customer's payment failed
1. Is Stripe fully connected?
Check this first. Go to Settings → Integrations → Stripe.
If the button reads Connect, you aren't connected. No card payments will work.
If you see Additional information is required to complete Stripe onboarding, Stripe needs more from you. Click Complete onboarding and finish it.
💡 This is the single most common cause — particularly the half-finished onboarding, because everything looks connected until a payment is actually attempted. Stripe often asks for identity documents days after you first set it up.
2. It's the customer's card
If Stripe is connected, the decline came from their bank. Common reasons:
Insufficient funds.
The card is expired, lost, stolen or cancelled.
Their bank flagged it as unusual — a common problem with a first payment to a new business.
The card doesn't support the payment type.
What to do: ask the customer to try a different card, or take payment another way and record it as cash or bank transfer at checkout. Neither of you can force a bank to approve a transaction.
3. A no-show or late-cancellation fee failed
You'll see a message saying the fee failed, usually with Stripe's reason.
The status change still applies — only the charge failed. You can contact the customer to settle it directly.
👀 Fees rely on a usable card on file. If it's since expired or been cancelled, there's nothing to charge. This is worth understanding before you rely on fees as a deterrent — see late cancellation and no-show fees.
4. A refund failed
Usually insufficient funds in your Stripe balance — you've been paid out since taking the payment, so there's nothing there to refund from. Stripe will normally pull from your bank account, but it can fail.
Also remember only card payments can be refunded through Styler. See discounts, part-payments, corrections and refunds.
Your subscription payment failed
Different problem entirely. Go to Billing in the side menu.
If your status reads Past Due, a payment didn't go through. Your account still works — for now.
Find the unpaid invoice in Invoice History and retry it once you've fixed the card.
Update or replace the card under Payment Methods.
💡 Add a backup card while you're there. If a subscription payment fails, Styler automatically retries against your backup — most partners never find out anything went wrong. Without one, a expired card becomes a suspended account and a lost day's bookings. See billing: your plan, cards and reactivating.
Reducing failures
Finish Stripe onboarding properly, including anything Stripe asks for later.
Keep a backup card on your own billing.
Have a fallback at the desk. If a customer's card declines, taking cash and recording it properly keeps your reporting accurate.
Set expectations in your T&Cs about what happens if a fee can't be collected.
Still stuck?
Email [email protected] with the booking reference, roughly when the payment was attempted, and the exact message you saw. Any error text starting "Stripe Error:" is especially useful — that's the reason straight from the payment processor.