Send SMS Alerts When Recharge Subscription Payments Fail

3 min setup

No coding required

Runs automatically

Never miss a failed subscription payment again. This workflow sends instant SMS notifications to your support team whenever a Recharge subscription payment fails, so you can reach out to customers quickly and recover lost revenue. Perfect for subscription businesses that want to stay on top of payment issues without constantly monitoring their dashboard.

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Recharge Charge Failed

Send SMS alert

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How it works

2 steps to start receiving SMS alerts with key charge details the moment a Recharge subscription payment fails

App connector: Recharge • Time to complete: 0 minutes (Auto-configured)

Why this matters: This is what starts the workflow. Every failed Recharge charge fires this trigger instantly, capturing the charge record — customer email, amount, payment processor, and scheduled date — that gets formatted into the SMS in the next step.

This step listens for the charge/failed event from Recharge and fires the moment any subscription payment is unsuccessful. It captures the failed charge details needed to populate the alert, including the charge ID, customer email, total amount, currency, payment processor, and the date the charge was originally scheduled. No configuration is required — it activates automatically for every failed charge across all your subscribers.

App connector: SMS • Time to complete: 2 minutes

Why this matters: This is the step that gets the alert to your team. A concise, information-dense text message is sent immediately when a payment fails — so whoever's on point can investigate or reach out to the customer right away, even if they're away from a computer.

This step sends a pre-formatted SMS to the phone number or numbers you specify, containing the charge ID, customer email, total amount and currency, payment processor name, and the originally scheduled charge date. In the field labeled "Which phone number(s) should receive this SMS alert?", enter one or more phone numbers in E.164 format, separated by commas — for example, +15551234567, +15557654321. You can add as many recipients as you need: a support lead, an ops manager, or an on-call team member. The message content is already configured and requires no changes, but you can edit the message text in this step if you want to shorten it or adjust the format.

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Frequently asked questions

What format do phone numbers need to be in?

Phone numbers must be in E.164 format — a plus sign followed by the country code and number with no spaces, dashes, or parentheses. For US numbers that looks like +15551234567. If a number isn't formatted correctly, the SMS step will fail to deliver for that recipient.

Will this send a separate SMS for every retry attempt if Recharge retries the payment?

Yes — this workflow fires for every charge/failed event Recharge sends, including each failed retry. If a payment is attempted three times and fails each time, three SMS alerts will be sent. If that's too noisy, add a filter step after the trigger to check whether this is the first attempt and only continue if it is.

Can I send the alert to a shared team number or SMS service instead of individual phones?

Yes, as long as the number accepts inbound SMS in E.164 format. Services like a shared team inbox, an on-call rotation tool, or a business SMS platform work fine — just enter that number in the recipient field the same way you would an individual phone number.

Make this template your own!

Customize this workflow even further:

Route alerts to different numbers based on charge amount

Add a Paths step between the trigger and the SMS step to check the failed charge amount. Send high-value failures to a senior team member or escalation contact, and standard failures to your regular support line. This way urgent situations get immediate attention without every alert going to the same person.

Tag the customer in Shopify at the same time

Add a Shopify customer tag step to run alongside the SMS so the customer's profile is flagged in your store the moment the alert goes out. Your team gets notified via text while Shopify is updated in the same workflow run — useful if you use customer tags to trigger email flows or filter your support queue.

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