A payment failed at checkout
What to do when a card won't go through — and how not to double-charge.
First moves
- Read the message. A plain decline is the client's bank saying no — it's not a Mila or Stripe outage. Ask the client to try another card, or fall back to cash/Zelle/PayPal/Venmo so the appointment still completes.
- Saved card declined? Cards expire and get replaced. Update it from the client's profile — see Card on file — and charge the new one.
- Card entry not working at all? Check that your Stripe connection is healthy in Settings → Payment Methods — if Stripe needs updated information from you, card processing can pause until you provide it.
"Did it charge twice?"
Checkout is built to prevent double charges — a retry after an error picks up where things left off rather than charging again. If the client's banking app shows two pending charges, one is almost always a temporary authorization that will drop off on its own within a few days. You can confirm what actually settled in Transactions on the dashboard: if there's one payment recorded, one payment happened.
If the client already paid but checkout errored
Don't charge again from scratch. Reopen the appointment's checkout — if the payment actually went through, the checkout recognizes it and completes the appointment without a second charge.
Still stuck?
Email support@milabook.com with the client, appointment, and roughly when you tried — we can see what Stripe saw and sort it out.