A grace period is the window of time after payment failure during which the customer retains full subscription access while the plugin attempts payment recovery. When the grace period expires without successful payment, the subscription is suspended.

📌 What This Extension Adds: Core DDLS has no grace period concept. Subscriptions Pro adds grace period tracking, configurable duration, automatic suspension on expiry, and auto-cancel after an additional configurable delay.

Grace Period Behaviour #

When a subscription renewal payment fails:

1. The subscription status changes to grace_period.
2. The grace period clock starts. Default duration: 14 days (dmsilm_sp_grace_period_days).
3. The customer continues to have full license access throughout the grace period.
4. Automated payment retries fire on the retry schedule.
5. Dunning emails are sent at configured intervals.

If payment is recovered at any point during the grace period, the subscription returns to active immediately.

Suspension #

If the grace period expires without payment recovery:

1. The subscription status changes to suspended.
2. License access is revoked.
3. A suspension notification email is sent to the customer.
4. The subscription enters the auto-cancel countdown.

Admins can manually trigger suspension before grace expiry using the Subscription Pro Status Metabox.

Auto-Cancel #

After suspension, if payment is still not resolved within a configurable number of days, the subscription is automatically cancelled. This is controlled by dmsilm_sp_auto_cancel_days (default: 30 days after suspension).

Auto-cancel fires via WordPress cron. When triggered:

1. Subscription status changes to cancelled.
2. A cancellation confirmation email is sent.
3. The record is retained for win-back campaign eligibility.

Configuration Summary #

Configure these at DMSI → Subscriptions Pro → Grace tab. See Retry and Dunning Settings for the full settings reference.