How to handle failed payments at a martial arts gym

To handle failed payments at a martial arts gym, let your payment system retry the charge, tell the member straight away with a link to update their card and give them a fixed grace period. Have one person follow up personally before the membership ends, because many failed payments come from an expired or replaced card.

This guide covers why membership payments fail, how retries and grace periods work, what to say to the member, who should follow up and what martial arts billing software should do for you.

What is a failed payment at a martial arts gym?

A failed payment is a recurring membership charge that the member's bank or card company declines. The member still has a membership, and the money for this month hasn't arrived.

Failed payments matter because they cause involuntary churn: members you lose because a payment failed and nobody fixed it, while the member still meant to keep training. A member whose card has expired often doesn't notice until the gym tells them.

Treat a failed payment as a billing task, kept apart from members who want to cancel. The BJJ gym member retention guide covers pauses and cancellations.

Why do membership payments fail?

Membership payments fail for a handful of reasons, and the fix depends on the reason:

Visa and Mastercard both run services that pass new card numbers and expiry dates to businesses that keep cards on file: Visa Account Updater and Mastercard Automatic Billing Updater. Your payment provider decides whether it uses them, so ask yours.

For the failures only the member can fix, make the fix quick. In gym software like Matpass, the member adds a new card from the billing page in the member app, and once it's their default card, their membership payments move to it.

In the EU, the bank asks the member to confirm when they set up or change a recurring payment, and later payments of the same amount to the same gym go through without that check. The rule is Article 14 of the EU regulation on strong customer authentication, as quoted by the European Banking Authority. A new card can trigger a new check, so a member who has just updated their card may need to approve the first payment.

What should happen when a payment fails?

When a payment fails, three things should happen on the same day without anyone at the gym lifting a finger:

1. The payment system schedules a retry, which is another attempt to charge the same card a few days later.
2. The member gets a message saying the payment failed, with a link to update their card.
3. The member's status changes to past due, so the front desk can see it.

Gym management software like Matpass does all three for you. The member's plan shows as past due, and the member gets an email, an in-app notice and a push notification with a link to update their card. The billing page in the member app shows the unpaid invoice, so the member can pay it straight away, and your staff see "Payments past due" on the dashboard and the open invoices under Transactions.

How many times should a failed payment be retried?

Let your payment provider retry a failed payment a few times over one to two weeks, and make your grace period end after the last retry. That way a membership never ends while another attempt is still coming.

Check the retry schedule in your payment provider's settings. Matpass takes membership payments through your gym's own Stripe account, so the retries follow the schedule set there. Retries help when the account was short on the day of the charge, and the first-day message covers expired and replaced cards, which only the member can fix.

How long should the grace period be?

A grace period is the time between a failed payment and the moment the membership stops. I'd start with seven days for most gyms, and longer if your retries run for longer. A week gives a member time to find their new card without letting an unpaid month run on.

Decide what the member can do during the grace period, such as booking classes or only checking in, and say it in the first message. The member then knows exactly what happens and when.

In Matpass, you set the grace period in Settings → Payments, anywhere from 0 to 60 days, and it starts at seven days.

What should you say to a member whose payment failed?

Say what happened, what the member needs to do and by when, in a friendly tone that assumes the card expired. A failed payment can feel embarrassing, so keep the money talk short and give the member the link.

Here's a simple failed payment email template in three steps. Change the details to match your gym.

The first message, sent automatically

Hi Alex, your payment for the Adult BJJ membership didn't go through. This often happens when a card has expired or been replaced. You can update your card here: [link]. Your membership stays open until 21 November.

A personal reminder, a few days later

Hi Alex, it's Sam from the gym. Just checking you saw the message about your card. Updating it takes a minute here: [link]. Let me know if anything has changed and you'd like to pause instead.

When the grace period ends

Hi Alex, we couldn't take the payment for your membership, so it's paused for now. Update your card here whenever you're ready to come back: [link]. We'd love to see you on the mat again.

Send the personal reminder from a real person the member knows. Offering a pause in the same message helps members whose money is tight this month.

Matpass sends the first message for you as an email, an in-app notice and a push notification. You can reword the email under Marketing → Automations → Built-in automations so it sounds like your gym.

Who should follow up on failed payments?

Give failed payments to one person, such as the owner, the gym manager or whoever runs the front desk. That person checks the past-due list a few times a week and sends the personal reminders.

Keep instructors out of it. Nobody wants to talk about a declined card while they're tying their belt, and the instructor's job is to make the member want to come back.

Matpass can tell that person for you. Set up an automation that starts when a member has a failed payment and notifies the owner or a chosen staff member, so the person in charge hears about it the same day.

What happens when the grace period ends?

When the grace period ends, stop the membership and keep the door open for the member to come back. Pausing the membership is usually kinder than cancelling it, because the member can restart by updating their card instead of signing up again.

Matpass does this for you: the plan expires at the end of the grace period and the membership is paused, so the member can't book or check in. If a later retry goes through or the member pays the invoice, the plan becomes active again by itself.

Should you charge late fees or use gym membership collections?

For most martial arts gyms, late fees and collection agencies cost more goodwill than they bring in. A member who gets a debt collector's letter is unlikely to train with you again or recommend you to friends.

If you do use them, put them in the membership terms the member agreed to, and check your local consumer law first. In the EU, members can also get a direct debit refunded within eight weeks, so a direct debit that went through can still come back.

Gym membership collections make more sense for large unpaid amounts, such as a long contract the member signed up for and stopped paying. The guide on how to price BJJ gym memberships covers contract lengths and cancellation terms.

What should martial arts billing software do with failed payments?

Good martial arts billing software should handle the routine part of failed payments for you and show you the few cases that need a person. Check for these features:

• Automatic retries, with a schedule you can see
• An automatic message to the member on the day the payment fails, with a link to update their card
• A grace period you can set
• A past-due list for staff
• A way for the member to update their card and pay the open invoice themselves
• Automatic reactivation when the payment goes through
• A notification to the person who handles billing
• A record of every failed and recovered payment

Test it before you choose, Matpass included: ask the vendor to show a failed payment from start to finish, including what the member sees and what happens when the grace period ends.

Key takeaways

• Treat failed payments as a billing task, kept apart from members who want to cancel.
• Expect expired and replaced cards, and send the member an update link on the first day.
• Make the grace period end after your payment provider's last retry.
• Tell members in the first message what they can do during the grace period and when it ends.
• Let billing software such as Matpass handle the retries, the first message and the past-due list, so staff only follow up where a person is needed.
• Give failed payments to one person, and keep instructors out of money conversations.
• Pause the membership when the grace period ends, so the member can come back easily.
• Avoid late fees and collection agencies unless the unpaid amount is large.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a benchmark for failed payments at gyms?

We couldn't find published research on failed payment rates at gyms with a clear method behind it. Track your own numbers each month: how many payments failed, and how many were recovered before the grace period ended.

Should a member keep training while their payment is failing?

That's your call, as long as you decide it once and tell the member in the first message. Letting members train during a short grace period keeps the habit going while they sort out their card.

What if the same member's payment fails every month?

Talk to them in person. A different payment date, a cheaper plan or a pause often suits a member whose money is tight better than a reminder every month.