A terminal and a method for prompting service failure in the video telephone service are disclosed, and the terminal comprises a processing module, a storing module and a setting module which are connected orderly. Said terminal sets and stores the corresponding relationship between different failure prompt information and prompting modes according to the user's command, and when the terminal receives a video telephone call request and the called user performs the failure prompting operation, the terminal generates a call failure prompt message according to the preset failure prompt information and the prompting mode corresponding to said failure prompt information and sends it to the calling user. After the calling user terminal receives said call failure prompt message, it analyzes and acquires the failure prompt information and the corresponding prompting mode, and displays and/or plays the failure prompt information to the calling user according to the prompting mode.