Waitlist

Available via: Dashboard only

How the Waitlist Works

When you enable the waitlist on a subscription offer, customers who subscribe are placed in a pending queue instead of being charged immediately. You (the merchant) must approve or decline each subscriber from the Dashboard.

Flow

1. Customer completes the checkout for a waitlist-enabled offer.
2. Their payment method is collected but not charged yet.
3. The subscription's waitlistStatus field is set to pending_waitlist.
4. You review and approve or decline the subscriber from the Dashboard.
5. If approved: the customer has 24 hours to be charged automatically (or they can start immediately using the "override" link in their email).
6. If declined: the subscription is canceled and the customer is not charged.

Enabling the Waitlist

Turn on Enable waitlist (capture later) when creating or editing a subscription template in Product catalog → Subscription templates.

Enabling the waitlist is Dashboard-only — the public API endpoint for creating offers does not accept a waitlist field. Create the offer via the API if you like, then enable the waitlist from the Dashboard by editing the offer.

Managing the Waitlist (Dashboard Only)

Each template with the waitlist on has its own waitlist. Go to Product catalog → Subscription templates, open the template, and click See waitlist. The template's page also shows its Recent waitlist.

Approve a Subscriber

1. In the waitlist, find the pending subscriber.
2. Click Approve.
3. The customer receives an approval email.
4. Their payment method is charged automatically within 24 hours, or they can click the "Start Now" link in the email to begin immediately.

Decline a Subscriber

1. In the waitlist, find the pending subscriber.
2. Click Decline.
3. The subscription is canceled. The customer is not charged.

Approve All

To approve every pending subscriber of a template at once, click Approve all waitlist on the template's page, or Approve all pending in its waitlist, and confirm. Their saved cards are charged and their subscriptions start.

Approving and declining requires write access to subscriptions. See Subscription Templates.

Customer Actions

Customers receive email notifications with action links:

• Start Now (Override) — After approval, the customer can click this to start their subscription immediately instead of waiting for the automatic 24-hour charge.
• Cancel — The customer can cancel their waitlisted subscription before being charged.

If the automatic charge fails, the customer receives a payment recovery email with a link to update their payment method and retry.

Waitlist Statuses

Important Notes

• The 24-hour automatic charge window starts when you approve the subscriber. In development mode, this is reduced to 60 seconds for testing.
• If the automatic charge fails, the subscription moves to failed_capture and the customer receives a payment recovery email to update their payment method.
• Waitlist management is dashboard-only — there are no API endpoints for approve/decline actions.