Failed payments and how to fix them

Sometimes a card expires, gets blocked, or a payment just bounces. When that happens to a Marking.ai subscription payment, here’s what you’ll see and how to fix it.

What you’ll see when a payment fails

A few things happen at once:

You’ll get an email about the failed payment with a link to update your billing.
An in-app banner appears at the top of your Marking.ai pages.
Your subscription drops into a “payment issue” state — your monthly allowance is frozen and you stop drawing from it.

While your subscription is in a payment-issue state, Marking.ai treats you like a top-up-only account. That has two important consequences:

Marking still works if you hold top-up submissions. Any top-ups you’ve bought are non-expiring and can still be spent, so a failed renewal doesn’t necessarily stop you marking. If you have no top-ups, new marking pauses until you fix the payment.
Some paid features are paused. Marko (your AI assistant), student and class summaries, assessment insights, and bulk export are switched off until your subscription is healthy again. Sharing links and advanced analytics keep working — a payment issue drops you into the top-up-only state, which still includes those two. This is different from simply running out of your monthly allowance while subscribed, where every feature stays on.

You can always review existing assessments, read marks and feedback, and edit them — that’s never gated.

How to fix it

Open Settings → Billing.
Click Manage billing to open the customer portal.
Update your payment method with a working card.
Save.

Your subscription reactivates within a few minutes, your monthly allowance unfreezes, and your paid features switch back on. You’ll get a confirmation email when it’s back to normal.

What if the new card also fails?

Double-check:

The card number is correct
The card hasn’t expired
The billing address matches your card
Your bank hasn’t flagged the charge — sometimes new subscriptions trip fraud filters

If you’ve tried twice and it’s still failing, drop us a line at connect@marking.ai. We can look at the underlying payment error and help you sort it.

Will I lose data while my payment is failed?

No. Your data is preserved throughout. Billing pauses and paid features step down, but every assessment, submission, mark, and share link stays exactly where you left it.

What if I’d rather stop than fix it?

If you’d prefer to pause or cancel instead of updating your card, you can do both from Settings → Billing — see Pausing your subscription and Cancelling your subscription.

Need help?

Open the Account menu and choose Chat to a human, ask Marko, or email connect@marking.ai.

FAQs

How many retries happen before my subscription is suspended?

Lemon Squeezy, our payment provider, retries a few times over several days before the subscription is marked as having a payment issue. You’ll get a heads-up email along the way.

Will I be charged for the missed period when I fix payment?

No — your subscription resumes from when payment is successful, not retroactively.

Can I keep marking while I sort out the payment?

Yes, if you have top-up submissions in hand — those keep working. Without top-ups, new marking pauses until the payment is fixed. Either way, some paid features — Marko, summaries, insights, and bulk export — stay switched off until the subscription is healthy again, though sharing links and advanced analytics keep working throughout.