# Cancel Orders That Never Got Paid

> Finds orders stuck in Pending payment for over a week and cancels them, so your order list shows only real orders.

- Job: [Orders & fulfilment](https://storeagent.ai/mcp-recipes/job/orders/)
- What it does: Asks first: changes your store, only after you say yes
- Time saved: ~20 min vs doing it by hand
- Requires: StoreAgent (free plugin, MCP on every plan)
- Works in: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and any MCP client connected to the store through StoreAgent MCP
- Web page: https://storeagent.ai/mcp-recipes/cancel-stale-pending-orders/

## The prompt

```text
Find all orders that have been in Pending payment for more than 7 days. Show me the order number, customer email, total, payment method, items and how long each has been waiting. Point out any customer who placed a paid order after the pending one, since they probably just tried again. Wait for my OK, then cancel only the orders I approve and add a private note to each that says it was cancelled for no payment.
```

## What happens when you paste it

You: Find all orders that have been in Pending payment for more than 7 days…

Assistant: Found 9 orders in Pending payment for over 7 days, worth $1,240. 4 of those customers placed a paid order later. Calling: `woocommerce/orders-query`, `woocommerce/order-update-status`.

Assistant: This will make changes in WooCommerce. Do you want me to go ahead?

Assistant: Cancelled the 5 orders you approved, each with a private note. I left the 4 where the customer paid on a later order, as you asked.

## Abilities this recipe calls

- **Find orders** (`woocommerce/orders-query`, read only, from WooCommerce): Finds orders by status, customer, email or date, with the items in each order.
- **Change order status** (`woocommerce/order-update-status`, asks first, from WooCommerce): Moves an order to a new status, like Completed or Cancelled, with an optional note.

## Variations

Add one of these to the end of the prompt. Swap anything in [brackets] for your own details.

- Use [3] days instead of 7.
- Leave out orders paid by [payment method].

## Related recipes

- [Find Orders Stuck in Processing](https://storeagent.ai/mcp-recipes/stuck-orders.md): Catches orders that have quietly sat in Processing for days, before the customer emails you about it.
- [Send a Customer Every Invoice They Asked For](https://storeagent.ai/mcp-recipes/resend-customer-invoices.md): Pulls a customer's orders for a date range and emails the invoice for each one.
- [Email Today's Pick List in One Go](https://storeagent.ai/mcp-recipes/daily-pick-list.md): Gathers every order waiting to ship today and sends one combined pick list.

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Part of the StoreAgent WooCommerce MCP Recipes directory: https://storeagent.ai/mcp-recipes/ (index for LLMs: https://storeagent.ai/mcp-recipes/llms.txt). Get StoreAgent free: https://app.storeagent.ai/sign-up/