Your beehiiv paid subscribers are churning on declined cards

When you turned on paid subscriptions, beehiiv set up a Stripe account for your newsletter. beehiiv’s own help docs note that Stripe’s failed-payment and expiring-card emails are off by default on a new account. So when a reader’s card is declined, nobody tells them, and the subscription ends.

Why retries alone don’t save them

Stripe can retry a declined renewal, and that recovers temporary problems like insufficient funds. But a card that has expired or been replaced will fail every time. Those readers only come back if someone asks them for a new card.

What DeclineKit does for a beehiiv newsletter

1. Connects to the Stripe account beehiiv created with a restricted key. Nothing to change in beehiiv.
2. Emails the reader in your newsletter’s name when a renewal is declined: up to four short plain-text notes over 12 days. Replies come to you.
3. Links to a Stripe-hosted card form and retries the renewal the moment they save a new card, so they stay a paid subscriber.
4. Warns readers before a card expires, so many renewals never fail at all.

Setup takes about five minutes

1. Sign in to Stripe and switch to the account beehiiv created for your newsletter.
2. Sign up for DeclineKit and click the button that opens Stripe’s key form with everything filled in. Create the key and paste it in.
3. Set your newsletter name and reply-to address, preview the emails, and switch recovery on.

Also on Ghost? DeclineKit for Ghost publications.