Retry analysis and order recovery

Retry analysis in Reveal Transactions shows how often orders succeed on the first payment attempt versus after later retries. Use it when authorization rates look acceptable but you still lose revenue on first-attempt failures—or when you need to prove that recovery strategies are working.

To open these charts, select Transactions, open Performance in the left navigation, then select the Retry & Recovery tab.

For definitions of transactions versus orders, see Understand payment performance.

What retries and recoveries mean

An order can have one or more failed transactions before it succeeds. Additional attempts can happen when:

• Customers try again with the same or a different payment method
• Automated dunning or recovery systems retry failed payments for subscriptions or other recurring models

In Reveal:

• Attempt 1 — The first transaction for an order
• Retries — Any subsequent transactions for the same order (Retry 1, Retry 2, and so on)
• Recovery — A successful transaction that occurs after one or more failed attempts

What retry analysis shows

Retry analysis gives an aggregate view of order success across attempts. Charts such as Order retry success (often labeled Invoice Retry Success on Chargebee-connected sites) show:

1. Success rate at Attempt 1
2. Cumulative or per-attempt recovery on later retries (Retry 1, Retry 2, Retry 3 & beyond, depending on the chart)

Like authorization rates, you can review these metrics by count (number of orders) or by volume (sum of order values successful at each attempt).

Related charts on the same tab can break recovery down by payment method or by decline reason so you can see which paths recover most often.

Retry success example

Consider one order with this history:

1. Transaction 1 (Attempt 1): Failed
2. Transaction 2 (Retry 1): Failed
3. Transaction 3 (Retry 2): Failed
4. Transaction 4 (Retry 3): Failed
5. Transaction 5 (Retry 4): Successful

The order recovered on the fourth retry (fifth transaction overall). In aggregate charts, that success contributes to later-retry recovery, not to Attempt 1 success.

Example: reading a simple recovery mix

Across 100 orders that failed on Attempt 1:

| Outcome | Orders | What it suggests | | --- | --- | --- | | Recovered on Retry 1 | 40 | Customers or systems recover quickly | | Recovered on Retry 2 or later | 15 | Longer recovery window still pays off | | Never recovered | 45 | Focus error reasons and drop-off in Failed order flow analysis |

Why retry analysis matters

• Tune retry strategy — See whether most recoverable volume lands on Retry 1 or needs a longer sequence.
• Quantify recovered revenue — Volume view shows the value brought back after first-attempt failure.
• Reduce payment friction — Pair retry outcomes with Error analysis to fix the failures that force retries.
• Improve overall authorization — Recovered orders raise order-level auth rates even when Attempt 1 stays weak.

Visualize retry paths with failed order flow analysis

For a path-level view of how failed orders move into retries, change payment methods, succeed, or drop off, use the Sankey-style Failed order analysis chart (often Failed Invoice Analysis on Chargebee-connected sites). See Failed order flow analysis.

If you see almost no retries in the data, contact Chargebee Support. Common causes include processor integrations that emit each attempt as an unrelated transaction, or customers who abandon after the first decline.