Payments 3 min read

Soft vs Hard Declines in Stripe Explained

Understand the difference between soft and hard payment declines and how to handle each.

🔒 Read-only access ⚡ Works in 2 minutes ✅ Free to start

📋 Manual: ~5 min vs ⚡ Coby: ~3 seconds

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The Manual Way ~5 min

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Or just ask Coby ~3 sec

1

Understand Soft Declines

Temporary issues: insufficient funds, daily limits, timeouts.

2

Understand Hard Declines

Permanent issues: stolen card, closed account, invalid number.

3

Export Failed Payments

Download your declined payments with reason codes.

4

Categorize by Type

Group by soft (retryable) vs hard (not retryable).

5

Retry Soft Declines

Enable automatic retries for soft declines only.

6

Handle Hard Declines

Request new payment method from customer.

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Total time per check

~5 min

Stripe Documentation

Decline Code Types →

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Team Coby

Online — watching your Stripe

Break down my declines by soft vs hard

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Decline Breakdown (This Month):

🔄 Soft Declines (retryable) 42 (67%)

❌ Hard Declines (not retryable) 21 (33%)

💡 With Smart Retries, you could recover ~60% of soft declines.

⚡ Answered in 2.3 seconds

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