For those who’ve moved a subscription store, what actually happened to the subscribers who were mid-dunning during the switch? Like the ones whose payment had already failed once and were sitting in retry. Did they carry over fine or did they just vanish in the move? I’m trying to work out if that group is recoverable or basically written off. Anyone go in thinking they’d keep them and then get surprised?
I wouldn’t assume they’re written off, but I also wouldn’t assume the dunning state carries over cleanly. In most migrations the important pieces are the saved payment method + recreated subscription contract; the exact retry history/status can depend on the subscription app and gateway setup.
I’d export a list of anyone currently in failed payment/dunning before the cutover, confirm with the subscription app whether those contracts will import as active vs paused/failed, and then run a post-migration check against Shopify’s “Failed payment” customer filter. Worst case, you still have a clean recovery list to send card-update links instead of losing them completely.
The part that surprised me: the new app almost never inherits the retry position. Even when the saved card token moves over cleanly, the dunning state (this sub failed once, next retry in 3 days) lives inside the old app’s billing engine, not in Shopify or the gateway. So the mid-dunning cohort lands in the new app looking like fresh active subs, and the default dunning there won’t resume their retry, it just starts treating them normally.
They’re recoverable, but only if you act on import: tag that cohort before you migrate, bring them in paused, and run a deliberate recovery charge or win-back sequence instead of letting the default flow swallow them. The ones that genuinely vanish are usually where the card token didn’t migrate (different gateway), and those need full re-collection.
Did your subs stay on the same processor through the move?