When Returnly goes down, do three things first: confirm the outage is on their side, protect whatever the outage is breaking in your store, and tell affected customers before they find out the hard way. This playbook walks through each step for Returnly specifically.
How do I confirm Returnly is actually down?
Check two independent sources before changing anything in your store. First, StatusBird's live Returnly status page, which is based on independent checks every 2 minutes. Second, Returnly's own status page at www.affirm.com/. If the official page still shows green, do not assume you are wrong: vendors often acknowledge incidents well after they start. If both look clean, the problem is more likely your store's configuration or a specific integration.
What does a Returnly outage look like?
- The branded returns portal fails to load or errors on return creation
- Customers cannot generate or download prepaid return labels
- Instant store credit fails to issue at return initiation
- Return status pages show stale or missing information
- Support tickets about starting returns spike suddenly
What breaks in your store
When a Returnly-powered returns portal goes down, customers cannot start returns, generate prepaid shipping labels, or check return status, and instant store credit issuance stops. That pushes every return into your support inbox and stalls exchanges, which can turn saveable exchange revenue into refund requests. Packages already in transit back to you are unaffected, but return processing and credit issuance on arrival can back up until the platform recovers.
For context, Returnly has had no major incidents in the last 90 days of StatusBird's independent monitoring (100.0% availability), so a real outage is unusual. That makes it easy to mistake one for a problem on your end, which is why confirming first matters.
What to do during the outage
- Process urgent returns manually: authorize by email and send a prepaid label from your carrier or shipping software account.
- Issue store credit or gift cards directly from your commerce platform for exchange-minded customers.
- Post a notice on your returns page explaining the portal is temporarily down and giving a support contact.
- Extend return windows for customers who could not initiate a return during the outage.
- If you are on a legacy Returnly setup, use the outage as a prompt to evaluate migrating to an actively supported returns platform.
Frequently asked questions
My returns portal is down. Do customers lose their return window?
Only if you enforce it rigidly. The fair move is to extend deadlines for anyone affected and to say so publicly on your returns page. Return-window disputes during a documented outage are chargebacks and bad reviews waiting to happen.
Can I still do exchanges while Returnly is down?
Yes, manually. Take the exchange request by email, issue store credit or place the replacement order directly in your platform, and send a prepaid return label from your carrier account. It is slower than self-service but preserves the exchange revenue that would otherwise become a refund.
After the outage
Once Returnly recovers, verify the affected workflows end to end rather than trusting the status page. Note the start and end times while they are fresh: if you are on a paid Returnly plan with an SLA, documented downtime is what a service credit claim is built on. See how to claim SLA credits for the process.
How this data is measured
StatusBird checks Returnly's status every 2 minutes, around the clock, independently of the vendor. The availability figure counts major and critical outages only; minor degradation is excluded so numbers are not skewed by vendors that report small blips near-continuously. Grades run from A+ to F. See the live numbers on the Returnly reliability page and current status on the Returnly status page, or browse all 84 service grades.
Know before your customers do
StatusBird monitors Returnly and 83 other services online stores depend on, plus your own storefront, every 2 minutes. When something goes down you get an SMS, email, or Slack alert with plain-English context, usually before the official status page catches up. Start monitoring free, no card required for the free plan.