Payment Preferences
Everything around saved payment methods, automatic renewals, and balance top-ups lives in two places: per-number controls on each FlyNumber's detail page, and account-wide controls at Billing Settings. This page walks through each one.
For a high-level mental model of how Auto-Renew, Charge saved card on renewal, and Auto-Refill fit together, start at the Overview.
Saved payment methods​
Your saved methods are the cards and PayPal account FlyNumber uses for everything that auto-charges — renewals (via the Charge saved card on renewal setting), top-ups (Auto-Refill), and on-demand charges from Add Funds or the checkout.
Caps:
- Up to 3 credit/debit cards (saved via Stripe)
- Up to 1 PayPal account (vaulted via PayPal)
- Four methods total
Where they live: Billing Settings → Saved Payment Methods card.
Adding a card​
Click Add a card and you're sent to Stripe's hosted setup page. Enter your card details on Stripe's site, complete any 3-D Secure challenge if your bank asks, and you're returned to Billing Settings with the card saved.
Stripe handles every part of card capture and verification — FlyNumber never sees or stores your card number, only the brand, last four digits, and expiration we use to label the row.
Adding PayPal​
Click Add PayPal and approve through PayPal's vault flow. On return, the PayPal account appears in your saved methods alongside your cards. Only one PayPal account at a time — re-saving overwrites the existing one.
Priority order​
Methods are ranked 1 to 4, with 1 marked Primary. The order matters because:
- Charge saved card on renewal tries them top-down on every renewal attempt
- Auto-Refill tries them top-down on every top-up
- The Primary method is pre-selected in the checkout's Payment Method selector and on Add Funds
Use the up/down chevrons on each row to reorder. Changes apply immediately — no separate save step.
Removing a method​
Click the trash icon and confirm. If this is your last saved method, Auto-Refill is automatically disabled (it has no method to charge), and the Charge saved card on renewal toggle is also disabled — without a saved method there's nothing to charge. Renewals fall through to your prepaid balance until you add a method back.
Auto-Renew (per-service)​
Each FlyNumber and the phone system carry their own Auto-Renew switch. Off = the service stops at period end and enters the grace period. On = we try to renew at period end (and what happens then depends on the Charge saved card on renewal setting and your prepaid balance).
Where it lives:
- For a FlyNumber — open it from My FlyNumbers → Billing card
- For the phone system — Phone System page → Billing card
Auto-renew is on by default on new orders. Toggling it off doesn't refund or cancel the current period — the service stays active until its expiry date, then expires instead of renewing.
Charge saved card on renewal (account-wide)​
When a service is due to renew (and its Auto-Renew toggle is on), the Charge saved card on renewal setting decides how the renewal is paid:
- On (default) — we walk your saved payment methods top-down and charge the first one that works. If every saved method fails, we fall back to your prepaid balance.
- Off — renewals come straight from your prepaid balance. No card charge is attempted.
Where it lives: Billing Settings → Charge saved card on renewal. The card description in the panel mirrors what we do:
- On: "For services with Auto-renew on, we'll charge your saved payment method first. If it fails, we'll use your prepaid balance."
- Off: "Renewals use your prepaid balance only. Turn this on to charge a saved payment method instead."
The toggle requires at least one saved payment method — there's nothing to charge without one.
Charging order​
When a renewal fires and the setting is on:
- Walk the saved methods in priority order — Stripe and PayPal both, top-down
- First success wins — stop and renew the service
- If every method fails, fall back to prepaid balance. Items are grouped by their original purchase bundle and processed cheapest bundle first — bundles are all-or-nothing (a FlyNumber and phone system purchased together either renew together or skip together; we won't renew half a bundle)
- Anything still unpaid is left for the next hourly cron pass
When the setting is off, steps 1 and 2 are skipped — we go straight to prepaid fallback.
When grace starts​
If neither saved cards nor prepaid balance can cover the renewal, the service enters grace at its expiry timestamp — not after some retry window. Failed charges still retry on the next hourly cron pass for a short period in case the issue was transient, but the service is already showing as in grace in the panel during those retries. Restore takes the service back out of grace as soon as the missed period is paid.
Failure handling​
Three consecutive failed card charges and card charging on renewal pauses automatically. Renewals continue from your prepaid balance until you update the failing method and turn the toggle back on. Each failure sends an email + in-panel notification.
| Attempt | What happens | Notification title |
|---|---|---|
| 1st failure | Renewal payment failed, will retry next hour | "We couldn't charge your saved payment method" — Attempt 1 of 3 |
| 2nd failure | Same | "We couldn't charge your saved payment method" — Attempt 2 of 3 |
| 3rd failure | Card charging on renewal is paused for the account — renewals fall through to prepaid only | "Charging your saved payment method has been paused" |
A successful card charge at any point resets the failure counter to zero. To re-enable after a pause, update or replace the failing payment method in Saved Payment Methods, then flip Charge saved card on renewal back on.
Auto-Refill (account-wide)​
Auto-Refill tops up your prepaid balance when it dips below a threshold. It does not renew services — that's Charge saved card on renewal's job. The two run independently.
Auto-Refill only fires when your balance crosses the threshold — it doesn't fire because a renewal is coming up. If your balance is fine but renewal day arrives with Charge saved card on renewal off and no saved methods, the renewal still draws straight from prepaid; if there isn't enough, the service hits grace. To avoid surprises, either leave Charge saved card on renewal on with a working card, or set the Auto-Refill threshold high enough that prepaid always covers the next month's renewals.
Configuration lives at Billing Settings → Auto-Refill:
- Threshold — minimum balance before refill triggers. Default $5.00, minimum $1.00, no upper bound.
- Refill amount — how much to add when it fires. Default $25.00, minimum $1.00, no upper bound.
Auto-refill can only be enabled when you have at least one saved payment method.
When it triggers​
Three ways auto-refill kicks in:
- Live debit — when a call, SMS, or other charge pulls your balance below the threshold, refill fires immediately
- Every 3 minutes — a cron sweeps accounts whose stored balance is below threshold and tops them up
- Opportunistic — any time the panel syncs your balance, it checks the threshold
There's a 30-minute debounce between attempts, so back-to-back top-ups don't pile up.
Charging order​
Identical to renewal charging — walks your saved methods in priority order. First success credits the balance and we're done.
Failure handling​
Same 3-failure rule as renewal charging. Different notifications:
| Attempt | What happens | Notification |
|---|---|---|
| 1st failure | Refill marked failed | "Auto-Refill Payment Failed — attempt 1 of 3" |
| 2nd failure | Same | "attempt 2 of 3" |
| 3rd failure | Auto-refill disabled | "Auto-Refill Disabled" |
A rarer alert — "Payment Processed — Balance Not Updated" — fires when a card charge went through but we failed to credit the balance on our side. Contact support if you see this one; it's a manual reconciliation.
Re-enabling​
Toggle auto-refill back on at Billing Settings. Saving resets the 3-failure counter to zero.
What happens with no saved methods​
If you delete every saved method, auto-refill flips off automatically — we need a method to charge. Add a card or PayPal back and you can re-enable it from the toggle.
3-D Secure on saved-card charges​
When your bank requires verification for an off-session charge, Stripe surfaces a 3-D Secure challenge. Where that happens depends on the charge type:
- Add Funds and checkout flows — the 3DS modal pops up in the panel and waits for you to complete it. Once you finish, the charge proceeds.
- Renewal charges and Auto-Refill top-ups — these run in the background with no browser session. If your bank demands 3DS off-session, there's nowhere to show the challenge, so the charge fails and we notify you by email and in-panel. Best practice: keep at least one saved card your bank doesn't typically challenge for off-session charges (most issuers exempt cards they've seen successfully charged a few times).
Where to next​
- Manually top up your balance — Add Funds
- What happens if everything fails — Grace and Restore
- See every charge and refill — Transactions
- High-level mental model — Overview