Fix Meta billing, spending limits and payment holds

Five minutes if you have a working card.

Before you start#

• Admin or finance role on the ad account in its business portfolio.
• A card or PayPal account in the ad account's currency. Meta refuses most online-banking accounts and limits how many ad accounts one card can serve.

1. What Madder sees, and what it cannot#

Madder reads the ad account's status and its current effective status on each campaign. It shows:

• Active — normal.
• Limited — Meta reports pending billing info: no payment method, or a card that must be confirmed. Drafts launch, but delivery waits.
• Disabled or Unsettled — Meta has stopped the account, usually after a failed charge or a policy action. Madder pauses its own actions on that account and puts a task on Home.

Madder never sees card numbers, invoices or the reason Meta gives; it cannot add a card, pay a balance, or appeal on your behalf. Madder's own Settings → Billing is Madder's plan, unrelated to Meta.

2. Add or replace the payment method#

As of September 2026:

1. Ads Manager → menu → Billing & payments → Payment settings (or Business settings → Payment methods).
2. Under Payment method click Add payment method, choose card or PayPal, enter details, Save. Set it as Primary; keep a second card as backup — Meta charges the backup when the primary fails.
3. If Meta asks to confirm the card, complete the bank's 3-D Secure prompt.

3. Clear a failed payment#

1. Payment settings shows an outstanding balance and a red Payment failed banner.
2. Click Pay now, choose a working method, and pay. Ads resume once the charge settles, usually within the hour; Madder picks the status up on its next sync.
3. Then fix the cause — expired card, bank block on foreign merchants, daily card limit — or it recurs.

4. Spending limits#

Two different limits stop ads:

• Account spending limit — one you set. Under Payment settings → Account spending limit, click the three dots to Change, Reset the amount spent, or Remove. When reached, every campaign pauses even though Madder's budgets look fine.
• Daily spending limit set by Meta — Meta's own cap on new or recently changed accounts; it rises with payment history. You cannot edit it. Scaling approvals above it do not deliver.

5. Account disabled or held#

If Payment settings looks fine but the account says disabled or restricted, go to Business Support Home (business.facebook.com/business-support-home) → Account status overview. Meta shows the reason and, where allowed, a Request review button; billing-related holds also list the balance to pay. Madder keeps the campaigns paused until Meta reports the account active.

If it doesn't work#

• Card declined repeatedly — the bank blocks recurring foreign charges; call them, or use PayPal.
• Paid, still "limited" in Madder — sync lag; wait for the next sync, then reload Home. If Ads Manager still shows the balance, the payment did not settle.
• "Payment method not accepted for this ad account" — currency mismatch or the card is already on too many ad accounts.
• Campaigns paused, no balance shown — check Account spending limit first; it is the most common invisible stop.
• No Request review button — the hold is billing, not policy; pay the balance and the account re-enables itself.