What are smart retries?

Smart retries are an AI-driven approach to re-attempting failed subscription payments. Unlike basic retry logic that follows a fixed schedule (e.g., retry every 24 hours for 7 days), smart retries analyze historical payment data, issuer behavior patterns, and transaction context to determine the optimal time and strategy for each individual reattempt.

The difference matters. A basic retry schedule treats every failed payment the same way. Smart retries recognize that a do_not_honor decline from Chase at 2 AM is a completely different situation than an insufficient_funds decline from a regional bank at noon — and adjusts the retry timing accordingly.

How smart retries work

Smart retry systems ingest data from multiple sources: the specific decline code returned, the issuing bank's historical authorization patterns, the time of day and day of week, the customer's payment history, and aggregate success rates across similar transactions. Machine learning models use this data to predict when a retry is most likely to succeed.

For example, insufficient funds declines often resolve after payday cycles. Generic declines from certain issuers clear up during business hours. Processing errors may resolve within minutes. Smart retries account for all of these patterns.

Impact on recovery rates

Smart retries significantly outperform fixed-schedule retries. By optimizing the timing and frequency of reattempts, they recover payments that would otherwise be lost, all without any customer involvement. This is the silent recovery layer — the customer never knows their payment failed because it was recovered before they noticed.

FlyCode's smart retry engine uses data partnerships with Visa and Mastercard to access network-level authorization patterns, enabling retry optimization that goes beyond what any single merchant's data can provide.