Why are my Stripe payments showing as incomplete?
The Stripe help pages give 5 common reasons. The first to rule out: A payment can still be waiting for card details, a confirmation or another step from the customer, and Stripe shows it as incomplete until then.
Is it broken, or just quiet?
A number can fall because fewer people came, or because something stopped counting them. Below are the causes the Stripe help pages give, and how to check each one yourself.
What causes it?
A payment can still be waiting for card details, a confirmation or another step from the customer, and Stripe shows it as incomplete until then.
In the Stripe help:
A payment that uses a PaymentIntent might require a payment method, confirmation, or other action to succeed.
Payment status updates, read 2026-11-12.The customer's bank can ask for an extra check, such as a code, before a card payment goes through. Until the customer finishes it, the payment is not complete.
In the Stripe help:
When a payment triggers 3DS, the card issuer might require the customer to authenticate to complete the payment, as long as 3DS authentication is supported for that card.
Authenticate with 3D Secure, read 2026-11-12.If a customer leaves checkout before finishing, the payment stays incomplete.
In the Stripe help:
The customer didn’t complete the checkout
Payment status updates, read 2026-11-12.Payments by bank debit can take a few days to finish, so they are not counted as successful straight away.
In the Stripe help:
These types of payment methods can take up to a few days to process.
How Payment Intents and Setup Intents work, read 2026-11-12.If your setup holds the money first and takes it later, a payment is not complete until the money is taken.
In the Stripe help:
If you’re separately authorizing and capturing funds, your PaymentIntent can instead move to `requires_capture`.
How Payment Intents and Setup Intents work, read 2026-11-12.
How do I check it myself?
When a payment is waiting on the customer's bank check, ask the customer to come back and finish paying.
In the Stripe help:
Ask the customer to return to your application to complete payment.
Authenticate with 3D Secure, read 2026-11-12.Let the customer know the payment did not go through and invite them to try again, perhaps with another way to pay.
In the Stripe help:
You can notify the customer that their payment didn’t complete and encourage them to try again with a different payment method.
Payment status updates, read 2026-11-12.
How would I know the day it starts?
- Feder reads your successful Stripe payments each day and compares each day with your own history.
- A payment counts only once it has succeeded, so payments still incomplete or pending are not in the count.
- It tells you when successful payments go quiet or move outside their usual range.
Some numbers are too quiet to judge daily, such as a form filled in a few times a week. Until there is enough of your own history to judge a change, Feder says it is still learning and scores nothing, rather than guessing.
See what Feder reads from Stripe, which feeds Wins. Feder only reads. It never changes anything in Stripe.
What else goes wrong with these numbers?
- Why are my Stripe payments failing or declined?Stripe
- Why doesn't my Stripe payout match my sales?Stripe
- Why did Google Analytics stop collecting data?Google Analytics
- Why aren't my key events showing in Google Analytics?Google Analytics
- Why does Google Analytics show (not set)?Google Analytics
See every question.
Where do these answers come from?
Every cause and check on this page comes from the Stripe help pages, quoted above with the date we read them. Last reviewed 2026-11-12. We read them again by 2027-11-12. If one changes, this page changes or comes down.