How free trials for plans work
When you create (or edit) a recurring or multiple payment plan, you'll have the option to enable a free trial period and determine how long it should be.
| How do free trials work? | What notification emails are sent? |
| Adding trials to existing plans | How to extend trials for members |
How do free trials work?
Adding a free trial is 100% optional, so feel free to keep the toggle off if you don't want a free trial for your plan.
If you enable the trial, when someone goes to join this plan, they will see that it has a free trial period and have to enter their payment information upfront to join the plan and get access to any pages/content to which the plan grants access.
If you want to offer a trial period without requiring payment information upfront, we recommend you create a free plan with an expiration date instead.
After a member has started or finished a trial, if that member cancels the plan and tries to rejoin in the future, they will not get another trial. Instead, they will be charged immediately. If you need to give them more free time, offering them a coupon would work well.
If the member is on a trial and switches to a different plan of yours with a different trial length, their new trial length will take into account any days they spent on their previous plan's trial.
If the member was previously on any paid plan of yours and is now trying to switch to a different paid plan that has a trial, they will NOT get a trial and will be charged right away when they switch. This also applies to members who have canceled a previous plan and are attempting to join a new paid plan that has a trial.
Notification Emails sent
TRIAL IS STARTING
As soon as their payment information is submitted, the trial period begins, and your member will receive a trial is starting email. You can edit the wording in Customize > Notification Emails > Trial Is Starting.
WELCOME EMAIL
Your members will also receive a welcome email with details about the plan and trial they just joined. You can edit this email by going to Customize > Notification Emails > Welcome Email.
TRIAL IS ENDING
Additionally, your members will receive a reminder email about the trial ending 3 days beforehand. You can edit this email by going to Customize > Notification Emails > Trial Is Ending. However, if you set a trial length of 1 day or 2 days, this Trial is Ending email will not be sent.
SUCCESSFUL CHARGE RECEIPT
After the trial ends, your members will be charged immediately and sent a receipt email which you can edit in Customize > Notification Emails > Successful Charge Receipt.
For more information about why we send these emails, we recommend you read about complying with Visa's credit card trial requirements.
Adding trials to existing plans
If you enabled (or edited) a trial period on an existing plan, it will NOT be retroactive. For example, say Jane Doe joined a plan of yours 30 days ago, and at the time, you did not have a trial. If you now enable a trial for the plan, Jane will not be affected by it — only new signups to the plan will be.
How to extend trials for members
If you ever want to extend a trial for one of your members, you can do that manually via your Stripe account:
- Log into your Stripe account.
Click Customers at the top:
- Find the customer you want to extend the trial for and click on them.
Click the Update subscription icon:
Scroll down to Free trial days and change the trial end date to whatever you want:
- Then, click Update subscription at the bottom.
