What to Do When Your Payment Processor Goes Down (and How to Prevent Lost Sales)
Your checkout is broken. Customers are trying to buy. Every minute costs you money. Here’s exactly what to do right now — whether you’re on Gumroad, LemonSqueezy, Stripe, or Paddle.
In this guide
How to Check if Your Payment Processor Is Actually Down
Before you panic, confirm it’s not just you. A failed checkout could be a browser issue, an expired API key, or an actual platform outage. Here’s how to tell the difference in under 60 seconds:
Stripe
@stripestatusStatus page: https://status.stripe.com
Also check the Stripe Dashboard → Developers → Logs for 5xx errors.
Gumroad
@gaborcselleStatus page: https://gumroadstatus.com
Gumroad's status page isn't always up-to-date. Check Twitter for community reports.
LemonSqueezy
@laborasyncStatus page: https://status.lemonsqueezy.com
LemonSqueezy uses Stripe under the hood — if Stripe is down, Lemon is too.
Paddle
@PaddleHQStatus page: https://status.paddle.com
Paddle manages tax and billing — partial outages may only affect certain regions.
Quick diagnostic checklist:
- ✓Check the status page — links above. Look for yellow/red indicators.
- ✓Search Twitter/X — search “[platform] down” filtered to the last hour. Community reports are often faster than official status pages.
- ✓Check DownDetector — visit downdetector.com for real-time crowdsourced outage reports.
- ✓Test yourself — try a test purchase in incognito mode. If it fails with a server error (not a card decline), the platform is likely having issues.
- ✓Check your own integration — review API keys, webhook endpoints, and recent code changes. Rule out your own code first.
What to Tell Your Customers RIGHT NOW
The worst thing you can do during an outage is go silent. Customers who tried to pay and failed will assume your product is broken — not that Gumroad or Stripe is down. Here are copy-paste templates for every channel:
Twitter / X post
copy & customize🚨 Heads up — our checkout is temporarily down due to a [Gumroad/Stripe/LemonSqueezy] outage (not on our end). If you're trying to buy, hang tight — we'll tweet the moment it's back. Your purchase page will work again shortly. Sorry for the inconvenience! 🙏
Email to recent visitors / list
copy & customizeSubject: Checkout is back up — sorry for the hiccup! Hey [name], You might have run into a checkout error earlier today. That was caused by a [platform] outage — not anything on our end. Everything is working again now. Here's the link if you'd like to complete your purchase: [link] Sorry for the trouble, and thanks for your patience. — [your name]
Discord / community announcement
copy & customize⚠️ **Checkout temporarily unavailable** Our payment processor ([platform]) is currently experiencing issues. This affects checkout and payment processing. **What this means for you:** If you tried to buy and got an error, your card was NOT charged. You can try again once the outage is resolved. We're monitoring the situation and will update this channel when it's fixed. Thanks for understanding!
On-site banner (add to your page)
copy & customize⚠️ We're aware of a checkout issue caused by a [platform] outage. Payments will resume shortly — your card has not been charged. We'll update this banner when it's fixed.
Pro tip: The fastest way to maintain trust is to be the first to tell your customers about the issue — before they find out by trying to buy. That’s why monitoring matters (more on that below).
How to Set Up Automatic Outage Monitoring
Manually refreshing status pages is not a strategy. You need to know the second something breaks — ideally before your customers do. Here are your options:
The DIY approach
- •Subscribe to status page updates — Most processors (Stripe, Paddle) let you subscribe to email or RSS alerts from their status page. Do this as a baseline.
- •Set up uptime monitoring — Tools like UptimeRobot or Pingdom can ping your checkout URL every few minutes. You’ll get an alert when it returns an error.
- •Monitor webhook failures — If you rely on webhooks for fulfillment, track failure rates. A spike in 5xx responses from your payment provider is an early signal.
The problems with DIY monitoring
Status page subscriptions are slow (providers update them 10-30 minutes after issues start). Uptime monitors only catch your own endpoint going down — not partial outages or API degradation. And most indie hackers have better things to do than build a monitoring stack.
This is why we built Incidently
Outage detection built specifically for indie hackers selling on Stripe
- ✓Auto-detects Stripe outages — we monitor Stripe’s API, status page, and community reports so you don’t have to.
- ✓Instant alerts on Twitter & Discord — get notified in seconds, not 30 minutes after the fact.
- ✓Auto-publish a status page — give your customers a branded page to check instead of flooding your inbox.
- ✓Built for solo founders — takes 2 minutes to set up. No DevOps, no YAML, no dashboards to maintain.
Prevention Checklist for Indie Hackers
You can’t prevent Stripe or Gumroad from going down. But you can massively reduce the impact when they do. Here’s a checklist you can work through this week:
Set up outage monitoring
Subscribe to your payment processor's status page. Better yet, use a tool like Incidently that monitors proactively and alerts you instantly.
Prepare your outage templates in advance
Write your tweet, email, and Discord announcement now — while you're calm. Save them somewhere accessible. When an outage hits, just copy-paste and customize.
Create a simple status page
Even a basic page at yoursite.com/status that says 'All systems operational' gives customers somewhere to check. Update it during outages.
Add a backup payment method
If you're on Gumroad, consider also having a Stripe direct link. If you're on Stripe, consider PayPal as a fallback. Diversification protects revenue.
Set up webhook failure alerts
If you use webhooks for fulfillment (course access, license keys, etc.), monitor them. A spike in failures = early outage detection.
Document your outage playbook
Write a simple doc: 'If checkout is down, do steps 1-5.' Include status page URLs, template locations, and who to contact. Future-you will thank present-you.
Test your checkout monthly
Do a test purchase on your own product once a month. Catch broken integrations, expired keys, or changed API behavior before your customers do.
Keep a recovery email ready
After an outage, email everyone who visited your page during downtime with the direct link. Many will come back and complete their purchase.
The Bottom Line
Payment processor outages are inevitable. Every platform — Stripe, Gumroad, LemonSqueezy, Paddle — has downtime. The difference between losing a few sales and losing a lot of sales comes down to three things:
- Speed of detection — how fast you know there’s a problem
- Speed of communication — how fast you tell your customers
- Recovery plan — how you recapture the sales you missed
Nail those three, and an outage becomes a minor inconvenience instead of a revenue disaster.
Stop losing sales to outages
Incidently monitors Stripe so you don’t have to
Auto-detect outages, publish instant status pages, and alert your customers on Twitter & Discord — before they even notice.
Get Incidently