Free Trials

How Free Trials Work

When you configure a free trial on a product, you must specify the duration in days.
Once a subscription is created for that product:

• Next order date: Instead of following the plan’s regular cadence, the subscription’s first next order date is set to the subscription creation date plus the configured free trial days.
• Entitlements for digital plans: If the product is a digital plan, the time-based entitlements created will expire when the free trial ends, rather than using the duration defined in the plan’s resource grants.
• Persistence of configuration: If the free trial configuration for a product is updated later, existing subscriptions will keep their original free trial settings. The new configuration only applies to subscriptions created after the change.
• Uniqueness: Each product can have only one free trial configuration at a time.

You can use the endpoints in this section to create, update, or delete a free trial configuration.

Example Lifecycle

Scenario: A product is configured with a 14-day free trial.

1. Day 0 (Subscription creation):

   • Customer subscribes to the product.
   • The next order date is set to Day 14 instead of following the plan’s cadence.
   • Entitlements are granted to the customer, set to expire on Day 14.

2. Day 14 (End of free trial):

   • Free trial entitlements expire.
   • The first paid billing cycle begins.
   • The next order date is now set according to the product’s subscription cadence.
   • New entitlements are created with the regular expiration rules defined in the product’s plan.

3. Configuration changes:

   • If the merchant changes the free trial duration to 30 days on Day 5, existing subscriptions (those started on Day 0) will still end their trial on Day 14.
   • Only subscriptions created after Day 5 will get a 30-day free trial.