What happens to my account when a payment fails

The short answer

If an invoice on your account goes unpaid, your account pauses. Nothing is deleted, nothing is cancelled, and nothing needs rebuilding. Settle the invoice and everything starts again on its own — usually within a minute.

This page also sets out the billing terms it is easy to be surprised by: plans are billed in advance, add-on seats are not refunded part-way through a month, and you are never billed for a stretch you were locked out of. All three are written plainly below, with examples.

WarmySender is a 4-pillar outreach platform — Cold Emailing, Email Warmup, LinkedIn Outreach, and Multichannel sequences. A billing pause is the one event that touches all four at once.

What pauses while an invoice is unpaid

Straight answer, including the parts that are inconvenient:

• Cold email campaigns pause. No new emails, no follow-ups.
• LinkedIn and Instagram steps pause with them. No invites, no messages.
• Email warmup pauses too. Your mailboxes stop sending and receiving warmup mail until the invoice clears, then start again by themselves. A few days makes very little difference; a long gap is worth avoiding, because warmup is what keeps your sender reputation steady between campaigns.
• Nothing is deleted or disconnected. Mailboxes stay connected. LinkedIn and Instagram accounts stay connected. Prospects, sequences, templates, statistics and history are all untouched.
• Your inbox keeps working. Replies that arrive during the pause still land, and you can still read and answer them.

One exception worth knowing: if you pay for LinkedIn seats and those are up to date, campaigns in that workspace keep running while you sort out the plan invoice. We do not switch off something you have already paid for because something else is outstanding. Warmup still follows your main plan, so it pauses either way.

How you find out, and how to clear it

A banner appears on your dashboard and on Billing naming the exact invoice: what it is for, its date and its amount. It also tells you which of three things is holding it up, because they are not interchangeable:

• Your bank needs to approve the charge. Approving it takes seconds. Adding a different card will not clear it.
• The card was declined. Here a different card is exactly the fix.
• The payment is still being processed. Nothing for you to do but wait.

Paused campaigns also carry a visible amber chip on the campaigns list reading "Paused — an invoice is outstanding", so you can see at a glance which ones are affected.

Once the payment clears, your account is restored and your campaigns and mailboxes are put back the way they were — normally within a minute, and without you pressing anything. Campaigns resume exactly where they stopped: nobody is re-enrolled, no step repeats, no statistics reset, and we never fire a burst to catch up on the days you were paused.

Plans are billed in advance

Your plan is charged for the month ahead, not the month just finished. A renewal invoice on 12 August buys you 12 August to 11 September. This is the ordinary way subscriptions work, and it is worth knowing because it explains two things people ask about:

• Why a failed renewal pauses you immediately. The invoice that failed is the one that pays for the period you are trying to use. There is no month already paid for sitting behind it.
• Why cancelling never leaves you cut off early. You have already paid for the current period, so you keep full access until it ends. We do not cut you off on the day you cancel.

Example. Sam is on Pro at $14.99 a month, renewing on the 12th. On 12 August he is charged $14.99, which covers him to 11 September. On 20 August he decides to cancel. He keeps Pro in full until 11 September, is not charged on 12 September, and his account moves to the free tier from then on.

Add-on seats are not prorated — a term worth knowing before you cancel

This one catches people out, so here it is in plain words:

If you cancel a LinkedIn or Instagram seat part-way through a month, that month is still payable in full. Add-on seats are not prorated and no partial refund is issued. In exchange, nothing is taken away early: the seat keeps working for the rest of the period you paid for, and you can change your mind and keep it right up to the last day.

Why the rule exists: a seat's cost is committed for the whole period the moment it is running, whether you use it for 30 days or 3. Refunding the unused part would mean the customers who keep their seats for the full month pay for the ones who don't. Same rule, same terms, for everyone.

Example. Nadia has one LinkedIn seat at $15/seat/month, billed on the 6th. On 6 August she is charged $15 for 6 August to 5 September. On 18 August she cancels the seat.

• She is not refunded any part of that $15 — the August period is payable in full.
• Her seat keeps working normally until 5 September: campaigns keep running, her LinkedIn account stays connected, nothing degrades in the meantime.
• She is not charged on 6 September, and not on any date after that.
• If she changes her mind before 5 September, she can turn the seat back on and nothing is lost.

Instagram seats work the same way, on their own billing date. Your email plan is separate from both and is unaffected by cancelling a seat — cold email and warmup carry on as normal.

What you are never billed for

If your subscription ends because a payment never went through, you are not billed for the time you were locked out. We do not charge for access you did not have, and we do not send a bill later for a period spent paused. If your plan ends this way, that is the end of the charges.

Example. Tom's $14.99 Pro renewal fails on 3 August and he does not settle it. His account pauses that day. After the retries run out, the subscription ends and the unpaid August invoice is closed out — he is never charged for August, and nothing is charged in September either. When he comes back in October, he starts a fresh subscription from that day and pays from that day. He is not asked to clear the months he was away.

The same principle runs through the rest of our terms: you keep what you paid for, and you are not asked to pay for what you did not get. Our full refund policy sets out the rest.

Common questions

Does my email warmup keep running while my account is paused?

No. Warmup pauses along with your campaigns while an invoice is outstanding, and starts again on its own once the payment clears. A pause of a few days makes very little practical difference to your sender reputation. If you expect to be paused longer than that, it is worth settling sooner.

Do I need to press anything once I've paid?

No. Campaigns and warmup come back on their own, normally within a minute. Pressing Resume before the invoice is settled will not work — the campaign refuses to start while the account is paused.

Will I lose campaigns, prospects or statistics?

No. Nothing is deleted during a pause. Every prospect keeps their place in the sequence, every statistic stays, and every mailbox and connected account stays connected. When you resume, people carry on from exactly where they were.

I cancelled my LinkedIn seat mid-month. Do I get part of the month back?

No — that month is payable in full, and no partial refund is issued. In return you keep the seat working right through to the end of the period you paid for, and you can reactivate at any point before then. If you were charged after cancelling, or charged twice for the same period, that is a different matter entirely: email [email protected] and we will look at it.

Does cancelling a seat cancel my email plan too?

No. Your email plan and your seats are separate. Cancelling a LinkedIn or Instagram seat stops that add-on only — your cold email campaigns and your warmup keep running on your plan exactly as before.

Why am I charged before the month I'm paying for?

Because plans are billed in advance. Each invoice buys the coming period. That is also why cancelling never cuts you off on the spot: you have already paid for the current period, so you keep it in full.

Does being paused move my billing date?

No. Your billing date stays where it is, and being paused for a few days does not mean you are billed twice for the same month.

If my subscription ends because a payment never went through, am I billed for the time I was locked out?

No. We do not charge for access you did not have, and we do not send a bill later for a period spent paused. If your plan ends that way, that is the end of the charges — and if you come back later, you start a fresh subscription and pay from that day.

I paid, but something is still paused.

Check Billing for a second outstanding invoice — a plan and an add-on seat are billed separately, so one can be settled while the other is not. If Billing is clear and something is still paused after a few minutes, email [email protected] and tell us what you are seeing. That is a case we want to look at.

Related guides

• Why is my campaign paused after a payment issue — Where the pause shows up and how resuming works
• What happens to my LinkedIn seats if a payment fails — Seats, connected accounts, and the grace window
• Cancelling your LinkedIn add-on — What stops, when it stops, and how to undo it
• I paid but my plan hasn't changed yet — The three steps when a payment went through but the plan hasn't
• Refund policy — Cancellation and refund terms in full
• Pricing — Plans, seats, and what's included
• Billing — Settle an invoice, update your card, manage seats
• Full documentation — Cold Emailing, Email Warmup, LinkedIn Outreach, and Multichannel guides