Case study  ·  Lifecycle & Revenue

A failed payment recovery sequence in GoHighLevel that stops the moment the customer pays

When a subscription payment fails, it emails the customer, checks whether they paid, follows up by SMS, checks again, and only then flags the account for a person.

The problem

A failed payment is rarely a customer leaving. It is an expired card or a changed bank. The customer still wants the product and does not know the charge failed.

Nobody tells them. The subscription lapses and by the time anyone notices, the customer has moved on. Revenue already won is lost to admin nobody was watching.

How it works

The workflow starts when a customer is flagged with a failed payment. In this build that is a tag. In a live account it starts from the payment failed event, with nothing else changing.

GoHighLevel workflow builder showing the failed payment recovery sequence from the payment failed trigger through emails, waits and paid checks
The recovery sequence in GoHighLevel.
  1. Send a payment failed email with a link to update the card.
  2. Wait one day.
  3. Check whether they paid. If yes, clear the flag, send a short confirmation and stop.
  4. If not, send an SMS reminder.
  5. Wait two days.
  6. Check again. If they paid, clear the flag and stop.
  7. If not, send a final notice email.
  8. Move the opportunity to the Payment Issue stage.
  9. Alert the team so a person can step in.
Close-up of the paid checks after one day and after the second reminder, each branching to end or continue
The checks between messages. A customer who pays is never chased again.

The checks are the point. A customer who fixes their card on day one gets one email and nothing more. Chasing someone for money they already paid is how a billing problem becomes a cancellation.

Every message is held to business hours. A payment that fails at 3am does not produce a text at 3am.

GoHighLevel execution log for the recovery workflow showing the steps for one contact, with the contact's name blurred
One contact moving through the steps. The name is blurred.
GoHighLevel enrollment history for the failed payment workflow with three contacts waiting or finished, with contact names blurred
Enrollment history. Contacts wait between steps as designed.
GoHighLevel execution log listing every step taken for several contacts, with contact names blurred
The full execution log.
GoHighLevel workflow settings with a time window from 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday
The business hours window.
GoHighLevel opportunities list with stages, values and statuses, with opportunity names and contacts blurred
Opportunities in the pipeline. Names are blurred.

What a person still handles

  • Accounts the sequence could not recover. They land in Payment Issue with an alert.
  • Talking to the customer when a card keeps failing.

Built with

  • GoHighLevel

GoHighLevel workflows, conditional branching, tags, pipeline stages, email and SMS, business hours controls and internal notifications. It is one part of a connected lifecycle. An account that cannot be recovered can feed straight into the win-back sequence.

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