How it works

Follow these 4 simple steps to automatically tag Shopify customers the moment a Recharge subscription payment fails

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Recharge Charge Failed
This is what starts the workflow. Without it, nothing runs — every subsequent step depends on the failed charge data this trigger captures, including which customer the failed payment belongs to.
This step listens for the charge/failed event from Recharge and fires the moment a subscription payment is unsuccessful. It captures the failed charge record, which includes the Recharge customer ID needed to look up the customer in the next step. No configuration is required — the trigger activates automatically for every failed charge across all your subscribers. If you only want to tag customers on specific subscription types or plans, you can add a filter step after this one.
Time to complete: Auto-configured (0 minutes)

Retrieve Customer in Recharge
The trigger provides the failed charge details, but the workflow needs the full Recharge customer record to find the matching Shopify customer. Specifically, it needs the external Shopify customer ID stored in Recharge — without it, the next step has no way to look up the right person in Shopify.
This step uses the Recharge customer ID from the trigger to fetch the full customer record from Recharge. The key piece of data it retrieves is the customer's linked Shopify customer ID, stored in Recharge as the external ecommerce customer reference. This runs automatically and requires no configuration — the customer ID is passed directly from the trigger.
Time to complete: 1 minute

Retrieve Customer in Shopify
Tags in Shopify are applied to Shopify customer records, not Recharge ones. This step bridges the two platforms by fetching the Shopify customer record using the ID retrieved from Recharge in the previous step — without it, the tagging step has no valid Shopify customer to update.
This step uses the Shopify customer ID from the Recharge customer record to fetch the matching customer from your Shopify store. It retrieves the customer's full Shopify profile, including their current tag list, which the next step needs to add the new tag without overwriting anything. This runs automatically and requires no configuration.
Time to complete: Auto-configured (0 minutes)
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Tag Shopify Customer
This is the step that does the actual work. It adds the payment failure tag to the customer's Shopify profile so you can filter, segment, and act on that status anywhere in your store — from email flows to customer service queues.
This step adds the tag recharge_payment_failed to the Shopify customer's profile using the customer ID retrieved in Step 3. The tag is already set to recharge_payment_failed by default, but you can change it to any value that fits your existing tagging system — for example, payment-failed or subscription-past-due. If you update the tag name here, make sure it matches exactly what you're filtering for in any Klaviyo flows, Shopify customer segments, or other tools that act on this tag.
Time to complete: 1 minute

Make it your own

Customize this workflow even further:

Create a customer service alert in Slack
Add a Slack step after the tag is applied to post a message to your support or ops channel with the customer's name, email, and subscription details. Your team can reach out proactively before the customer even realizes their payment didn't go through.
Remove the tag automatically when payment succeeds
Build a companion workflow triggered by Recharge's charge/paid event that removes the recharge_payment_failed tag from the Shopify customer. Pair both workflows together and your customer tags always reflect their current subscription status without any manual cleanup.

Frequently asked questions

Will this workflow tag a customer multiple times if they have multiple failed payments?
The tag will only appear once on the customer's Shopify profile even if the workflow runs multiple times — Shopify doesn't add duplicate tags. Each failed charge will trigger the workflow, but the end result on the customer record stays the same until the tag is removed.
Does the customer need to exist in both Recharge and Shopify for this to work?
Yes. The workflow relies on Recharge storing a linked Shopify customer ID. For most Recharge setups this is automatic, but if a customer exists in Recharge without a valid Shopify link — which can happen with migrated or legacy accounts — Step 3 will fail to find a matching customer and the tag won't be applied.
Can I trigger additional actions based on how many times a customer's payment has failed?
Not within this workflow directly, but you can extend it by adding a MESA Table step to log each failed charge event per customer. Once you're tracking failure counts, you can build a separate workflow that checks that count and takes escalating actions — like flagging the account for review or pausing the subscription after a set number of failures.
What is a template?
Templates are pre-made workflows by our team of experts. Instead of building a workflow from scratch, these have all the steps needed to complete the task.
Can I personalize a template?
Yes! Every step can be customized to meet your exact requirements. Additionally, you can even add more steps and make it more sophisticated.
Are templates free?
Yes! Our entire library containing hundreds of templates are free to use and customize to your exact needs.

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