Orders stuck on pending. Customers paid. Nothing moved.
When WooCommerce shows an order as pending after a customer's card has been charged, something broke in the communication between your payment gateway and your store. We find the break and recover the orders.
Don't manually refund yet. In most cases stuck orders are recoverable — customers can get their order fulfilled without a refund or a repeat payment. Contact us first.
- Root cause diagnosis
- Webhook replay to recover stuck orders
- Gateway configuration fix
- End-to-end test before close
- 30 days follow-up cover
No fix? You pay nothing.
Why orders get stuck on pending
Pending orders don't mean the payment failed. They mean WooCommerce never received confirmation that the payment succeeded. Here's why.
The webhook is the messenger
When a payment goes through, the gateway (Stripe, PayPal, etc.) sends a webhook — a small HTTP request — to your WooCommerce store saying "payment confirmed". If that webhook doesn't arrive, WooCommerce has no idea the payment succeeded.
The webhook can fail silently
Your gateway charges the card successfully and tries to notify WooCommerce. But if the URL has changed, SSL has expired, or the server rejects the request — the gateway logs a delivery failure, your store stays silent, and the order never moves.
Most stuck orders are recoverable
Because the payment actually went through, the data is there. Most gateways allow you to replay failed webhooks — once the underlying issue is fixed, we can trigger a replay and complete all the stuck orders at once.
What breaks the webhook
Most pending order problems trace back to one of these four causes.
Wrong webhook URL after migration
The most common cause. Your gateway still has the old domain in its webhook settings. Requests fire to a URL that no longer exists — they fail silently, and every order stays pending.
Most commonSSL certificate expired or invalid
Gateways refuse to send webhooks to endpoints without a valid SSL certificate. An expired cert means every webhook attempt fails with a connection error — even if your site looks fine in a browser.
High urgencySecurity plugin blocking gateway requests
Wordfence, iThemes Security, and similar plugins can incorrectly identify gateway webhook requests as suspicious and block them. The gateway sends the request — your store silently drops it.
CommonWebhook signing secret mismatch
Stripe and other gateways sign their webhook payloads. If the signing secret in WooCommerce doesn't match what the gateway is using — often after a plugin reinstall — every webhook gets rejected as invalid.
CommonFix and recover in three steps
We fix the root cause first — then recover the stuck orders so customers get what they paid for.
Don't refund — contact us
Tell us how many orders are stuck and which gateway is involved. Don't manually update orders or issue refunds until we've assessed the situation — we may be able to recover everything automatically.
⏱ 5 minutesWe find and fix the break
We check webhook delivery logs, gateway settings, SSL status, and security plugin rules. We identify exactly where the communication is failing and fix the root cause so no new orders get stuck.
⏱ Same dayWe recover the stuck orders
Once the root cause is fixed we replay the failed webhooks, completing the stuck orders automatically. Confirmation emails fire, stock updates, customers get their orders — no refunds, no repeat payments.
⏱ Orders recovered same session31 stuck orders recovered after a Wordfence update
A homeware retailer noticed customers emailing to say they'd been charged but hadn't received an order confirmation. Their WooCommerce dashboard showed 31 orders stuck on Pending Payment — stretching back four days.
A Wordfence update had added a new rate-limiting rule that incorrectly flagged Stripe's webhook delivery IPs. Every webhook attempt returned a 403 Forbidden. We whitelisted Stripe's IP ranges in Wordfence and replayed all 31 failed webhooks.
"We were about to start issuing refunds to 31 customers. StoreFixHQ recovered every single order instead. The customers got their confirmations and we kept the revenue."
— Homeware retailer, UKWhat's covered — and what isn't
We fix pending order issues caused by webhook and gateway communication failures. Here's the full scope.
We fix these Covered
- ✓ Webhook URL mismatch after domain change or migration
- ✓ SSL certificate blocking webhook delivery
- ✓ Security plugin incorrectly blocking gateway IPs
- ✓ Webhook signing secret mismatch
- ✓ PayPal IPN configuration failures
- ✓ Recovery of stuck orders via webhook replay
- ✓ Plugin conflicts preventing order status updates
- ✓ Caching serving stale order status pages
Outside our scope Not covered
- ✕ Orders where the payment genuinely failed — customer not charged
- ✕ Gateway platform outages preventing webhook delivery
- ✕ Custom order management workflows with no documentation
- ✕ Fraud disputes or chargeback management
- ✕ Orders on a hacked or compromised site
Not sure if you're in scope? Send us a note — we'll tell you honestly before anything is paid.
No fix, no fee. Full stop.
If we can't resolve your pending orders, you pay nothing. We'll explain exactly what we found and why recovery isn't possible in your case — no vague answers, no partial charges.
- No payment taken upfront — invoiced only on successful fix
- Order recovery via webhook replay included in Priority fix
- 30 days follow-up cover with every fix
- Same fault recurs within 30 days — we fix it again, free
Flat rates. No hourly surprises.
You know the cost before we start. All prices exclude VAT.
- Full webhook diagnostic
- Root cause fix
- End-to-end order test
- Written handover summary
- 14 days follow-up cover
- Everything in Standard
- Same-day diagnosis & fix
- Stuck order recovery included
- Webhook replay for all pending orders
- 30 days follow-up cover
- Monthly webhook health check
- Proactive gateway monitoring
- SSL expiry alerts
- Priority response on any issue
- Unlimited fixes during plan