Subscription with Free Trial Period

A free trial period extends capabilities of an auto-renewable subscription. It allows the customer to purchase a product for free. Follow up payment for the product and regular purchase of renewals are executed automatically.

These subscriptions are suitable for products that have a limited validity period. The product validity period (term) provides the customer with a certain period of time during which they can use their purchased product. For example, 30 days, 3 months, 1 year.

• The customer acquires a product having a trial period free of charge
• Instead of paying for the order, a payment instrument is bound for further payments
• Upon successful binding, the product trial starts
• At the end of the free trial period, a paid version of the product is automatically purchased
• Next, regular automatic purchases of renewals happen, and it's the same with the standard work scheme of auto-renewable subscriptions (AR)

• A product is added to a checkout page via a regular checkout link
• The price equal to zero is displayed on the checkout page for the product
• The Auto-Renewal Checkbox is not displayed on the checkout page. You can add some product comment to describe your conditions
• Only the payment methods that support auto-renewable subscriptions and test payments will be available to the customer
• To place an order, only one product (trial) must exist on the checkout page due to the specifics of paying for an order with a zero price

You can configure a product with a free trial period to be replaced with its paid version. It is used if the customer acquired a product with a trial period earlier and wants to purchase another one.

How it works:

• The customer adds a product with a trial period to a checkout page
• Enters their personal data and selects a payment method as usual
• After the customer clicks the button to confirm their order, verification is executed
• If the order meets the conditions, the product having a trial period is replaced by a different product (paid version) at checkout. In this case, the message about the replacement is shown to the customer
• If, for some reason, it was not possible to add a replacement product to a checkout page (e.g., replacement product was not available for purchase), only the product with a trial period will be removed from the checkout page

Verification conditions:

• The customer with the same email address has already bought the product with a trial period through this checkout page
• The product in the previous order may differ from the product in the current order, but in both the orders it must be a product with a trial period
• The previously placed order has status paid and was made within a certain period (1 year by default)

An individual replacement product can be configured per product with a trial period. The replacement product must be created in advance like a regular product. The replacement product can only be a paid version (product without a trial period).

You can track product replacement in an order using Order History (available through the ESupport portal).

If you want to use the product replacement option, you have to contact our support team for configuration.

• Instead of making an ordinary payment for their order, the customer must bind the payment method that is going to be used for further payments. Usually, such binding involves test debiting of a minimum payment amount (e.g., 1 ruble) from the customer account. The verification payment amount returns to the customer if the verification is successful
• After the payment method has been bound, an auto-renewable subscription (AR) is created
• The customer cannot refuse the subscription when placing an order for a product having a trial period. However, the customer can cancel it after the order with such a subscription has been created

An order for a paid version is created and paid for automatically (as it were an ordinary child order for an auto-renewable subscription).

Purchase of renewals is executed according to the standard work scheme of subscriptions, i.e. all subsequent renewal orders are created and paid for automatically.

After a subscription to a product having a trial period has been created, the customer can cancel it.
This action can be executed using the standard scheme – on the subscription management page.
When canceling:

• The customer continues using their product until the expiration date of the trial period comes. After this date the product stops working
• No purchase of a paid version happens

After the trial period has ended, the subscription can be canceled using the standard cancelation scheme.

When purchasing a product with a trial period, emails about the order are sent to the customer. These emails differ from the standard ones.

You can create a product having a trial period via:

• Product API
• Merchant Portal

If you additionally want to set up the option to replace your product having a trial period with a paid version, you have to:

• Create a paid version of your product (standard scheme)
• Contact our support team to set up the replacement option

The option to replace a product having a free trial period with a paid version can be set up individually per product.