Free Trial Implementation
Implementing time-limited free access to paid features using Stripe's subscription trial periods, including card collection strategy, trial expiration handling, and conversion optimization.
Description
Free trial implementation allows potential customers to experience paid features before committing to a subscription. Stripe supports trials natively through the trial_period_days parameter on subscription creation or the trial_end parameter for a specific end date. During the trial, the subscription has a status of 'trialing' and no charges are made. When the trial ends, Stripe automatically creates an invoice and attempts to charge the customer's payment method, transitioning the subscription to 'active' on success or 'past_due' on failure.
The key architectural decision is whether to require a payment method upfront (card-required trial) or allow trials without payment details (no-card trial). Card-required trials have higher conversion rates (typically 40-60%) because the customer is pre-committed, but lower trial signup rates due to friction. No-card trials maximize signups but have lower conversion rates (typically 10-20%) and require a separate payment collection flow at trial end. With card-required trials, create a subscription with trial_period_days and a SetupIntent-confirmed payment method; with no-card trials, create the subscription without a default payment method and prompt for payment before the trial expires.
Trial management requires several supplementary systems: a trial expiration notification sequence (email at T-7, T-3, and T-1 days), a trial extension mechanism for sales-assisted deals (update trial_end on the subscription), abuse prevention to stop users from creating multiple trials with different email addresses (use card fingerprint or other identity signals), and analytics tracking trial starts, engagement during trial, trial-to-paid conversion rate, and time-to-conversion. The customer.subscription.trial_will_end webhook fires 3 days before trial end, providing a trigger for your final conversion push.
Prompt Snippet
Create card-required trials with stripe.subscriptions.create({ customer: cus_id, items: [{ price: price_id }], trial_period_days: 14, payment_settings: { save_default_payment_method: 'on_subscription' } }) after confirming a SetupIntent to collect and authenticate the card upfront. Listen for the customer.subscription.trial_will_end webhook (fires 3 days before expiry) to send a conversion reminder email with trial usage stats. Prevent trial abuse by storing the PaymentMethod card.fingerprint during signup and checking SELECT COUNT(*) FROM trial_signups WHERE card_fingerprint = ? before allowing a new trial. Track trial cohort metrics: trial_started, trial_engaged (triggered at least N key actions), trial_converted, trial_churned with timestamps for funnel analysis.Tags
Related Terms
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Managing recurring payment cycles using Stripe's Subscription and Price APIs, including plan creation, billing intervals, upgrades/downgrades, and lifecycle event handling.
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