Free trials
When to offer a trial, how long, card up front or not, how a trial turns into a paying customer, and how one customer is kept to one trial.
A trial gives a new Customer the whole plan free for a set number of days. Set it once on the Offer for every sign-up, or start one by hand for a single Customer.
Two kinds of trial
| On the Offer | For one Customer | |
|---|---|---|
| Set by | The Offer's trial: days, and card | Offer.trial, with customer, days and card |
| Who gets it | Every new sign-up on that plan | The one Customer named |
| Use it for | Self-serve plans | A prospect in a sales conversation, or an extension |
| Guide | Add a free trial to a plan | Give a customer a free trial |
A trialing Customer holds every Entitlement the Offer grants, from the first minute. A trial of a plan with less in it tests the wrong product.
Card up front, or not
card | At sign-up | When the trial ends | Expect |
|---|---|---|---|
true | The buyer adds a card before starting | The first charge runs on its own | Fewer trials, most of them convert |
false | Only an email | The trial ends; the Success Manager follows up for a card | Many trials, few convert on their own |
Ask for a card when buyers already know what they want, such as an API a developer has read about. Skip it when the product has to show its value first, and make the first session count.
How long
Fourteen days is the default, and the right length is the time a buyer needs to reach the moment it pays off once. Leaseline's trial is 14 days because the first renewal reminder goes out within a week of import.
Longer is rarely better: a 30-day trial gives the buyer 30 days to forget. Three days before a trial converts, Convert a trial sends one reminder: the date, the Price and a one-step cancel link. Nobody is charged by surprise.
One trial per customer
A Customer gets one trial per Offer. A second sign-up from the same account, the same card or the same Organization starts on the paid plan, with the trial already used.
New sign-ups also pass the fraud screen before any trial starts. A disposable address with a foreign card waits for verification instead of getting free use.
Next
- Recurring billing: the
trialingstatus and what follows it. - Plans inside your app: what a trialing customer sees.