How long can a pre-order wait before the card fails?
pre-orders processed by PreProduct, and counting. In late 2026, we pulled the data on charge-later and deposit-upfront pre-orders to see the trends in card failure below. Each bar shows what percentage of charges were paid first time, recovered after a failed charge, or failed (and why), grouped by the number of days between the order and the charge. The label on each bar is the total that succeeded (paid first time + recovered). Smaller failure reasons are grouped together. Succeeded Failed Built for flexible charging Charge when you ship. Don’t be held back by 7-day authorisation periods. PreProduct saves the customer’s card at checkout and charges it when the order is ready, whether that’s 9 days or 9 months away, processed via Shopify Payments and/or PayPal. If a charge fails, PreProduct can email the customer to update their card.Charge later: what happened to each charge
Days to charge
Charges
Total success
Paid first time
Recovered after a failed charge
Insufficient funds
PayPal error
Card expired
Other reasons
0–7 days
22,987
96.7%
93.6%
3.1%
1.5%
0.7%
0.0%
1.1%
8–30 days
49,698
95.0%
89.7%
5.3%
2.1%
1.5%
0.0%
1.5%
31–60 days
36,971
93.0%
89.6%
3.5%
2.8%
2.2%
0.1%
1.9%
61–90 days
15,194
89.5%
86.5%
3.0%
2.4%
5.8%
0.2%
2.1%
91–120 days
5,098
86.6%
82.8%
3.8%
2.4%
8.1%
0.2%
2.6%
121+ days
14,843
81.9%
68.1%
13.8%
1.6%
7.6%
0.2%
8.8%
Days to charge
Charges
Total success
Paid first time
Recovered after a failed charge
Insufficient funds
PayPal error
Card expired
Other reasons
0–7 days
5,518
96.1%
93.4%
2.7%
1.4%
0.1%
0.0%
2.4%
8–30 days
14,419
96.5%
93.2%
3.2%
1.9%
0.1%
0.0%
1.5%
31–60 days
22,194
90.3%
88.7%
1.6%
6.6%
0.7%
0.2%
2.3%
61–180 days
41,554
89.0%
85.2%
3.8%
6.0%
0.7%
0.5%
3.9%
181+ days
11,509
91.4%
81.2%
10.2%
2.2%
2.5%
0.2%
3.7%
The four reasons, side by side