When a Payment Goes Wrong
Failed, pending, and duplicate charges, and payments that did not update your account.
Why Did My Payment Fail?
Almost always your bank declining the charge, and they usually say why.
Total Family does not decline payments. The message you see comes from the payment provider passing on what your bank said.
What to do
- Check with your bank first. A text or app notification usually explains it, and it is often a routine fraud block on an unfamiliar merchant.
- Check the card details. Number, expiry, and security code, plus the Country or region field matching your card's billing country.
- Try another card.
- Try Apple Pay or Link instead, using the buttons at the top of the payment page. These skip the card fields and often succeed where a manual entry failed.
If it keeps failing, contact support and say which card type you used and what the message said. Do not send us your card number.
I Was Charged but My Account Still Says Free
Refresh the page first.
Payment confirmation and your account updating do not always land in the same instant.
- Refresh. This resolves it most of the time.
- Look for the PREMIUM badge at the top of the sidebar, under the logo. That badge is the reliable indicator rather than any single screen.
- Check Settings, then Plans. The Your Current Plan label should read Premium.
If it still says Free, contact support and include your payment confirmation. That one detail lets us match the payment to your account without a round of questions.
You will not be charged twice while we sort it out.
Why Was I Charged Twice?
Almost always it is one charge appearing twice, not two charges.
A genuine double charge is rare. What normally happens is that your statement shows a pending authorisation alongside the completed charge, which reads as two lines for the same payment. The authorisation drops off on its own after a few days.
- Look at your Billing Portal. Open Settings, then Billing & Payment, then Open Billing Portal. It lists what was actually taken.
- Compare against your statement. If the portal shows one payment and your statement shows two, one is very likely a pending authorisation.
- Wait a few days before escalating a pending line.
If two payments genuinely settled, contact support with both payment confirmations or statement lines, including dates and amounts. We will check it against your billing record and put it right.
Will You Retry a Failed Payment Automatically?
Yes, for renewals, and we email you when it happens.
If a payment on an existing subscription fails, it is retried automatically without you doing anything, and your access is not cut off while that happens.
You will also get an email telling you the payment failed, with a link to update your card. See What happens if my renewal payment fails?.
A first purchase is different. If your very first payment fails there is no subscription yet to retry, so start again from Settings, then Plans.
My Promo Code Was Rejected
See Can I use a promo code?, which covers what the error looks like and the three things to check.
I Can't Access a Feature I Think I Paid For
Check what is actually gated before assuming it is a billing fault.
On the free plan, Quotes and My Journey stay open. Inside My Journey, only the individual Premium tasks are locked rather than the whole page. The vision work, Legacy Letters, milestones, and Chat with Kin need Premium. See Free vs Premium.
If your advisor was paying and their arrangement has ended, your household drops to the free plan. Everything you have written stays yours.
If you are Premium and something is still locked, that is not expected. Refresh, then contact support saying which screen it was.