Offering a free trial is a classic sales tactic to allow users to try out your product before paying for it.
We recently launched our first plugin for $19/year and offered a 60-day free trial to increase sign-ups and get feedback.
Let’s go over how to set this up on your WooCommerce store!
Before we dive into this post, be aware that you need the WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin to offer free trials.
In addition, think about how you want to setup your free trial. Here are some common questions:
What product do you want to offer as a free trial?
How long do you want your free trial to last?
Do you want to require a user to put their credit card down initially?
If you are more of a visual learner check out the video below:
Let’s jump into it!
How to setup free trials with WooCommerce Subscriptions?
- On your WordPress dashboard, hover over Products and click Add New.
- Next, choose the product type as ‘Simple subscription’ or ‘Variable subscription’.
- Then, add your subscription price, expiration date, and free trial period.
- Finally, publish your Product.
We initially offered the plugin for $19/year with a 60-day free trial period. We also required users to put their credit card down before they got access to our plugin. This is enabled by default by WooCommerce Subscriptions.
When the customer goes through the Checkout process to get our plugin, here is how they are billed:
- Today: $0
- 60 days from now: $19
- 425 days from now (if they renew): $19
How to make a credit card not required?
You probably have noticed products or services that offer a free trial and state “no credit card required”. Here is how to set this up.
On your WordPress dashboard, hover over WooCommerce and click Settings.
Next, click the Subscriptions tab.
Then, enable “Allow $0 initial checkout without a payment method”
Finally, click Save.
Test this out by going through the Checkout process with your free trial product. On your Checkout page, no payment options should show!
How to setup a free trial (with a sign-up fee)?
You may be looking to offer your product at a high discount for the first few months but still want to charge an initial fee. For example, the Wall Street Journal offers their online-only plan for $1 for the first 2 months, then $20 for the next 12 months. After 14 months, the price becomes $40 per month.
- 1st 2 months: $1.00 (sign-up fee)
- Next 12 months: $40.00 per month (add recurring coupon for 50% off for 1st 12 payments)
- After 14 months: $40.00 per month (subscription price)
Here is how you would set this product up on your WooCommerce store:
Next, add a recurring product coupon for 50% off the first 12 payments.
You can set the coupon to auto-apply using the Smart Coupons plugin.
Here is how my coupon is setup:
Send reminder email to customer that their trial is about to expire
You can also setup a reminder email to automatically send to customers that their card will be charged in 7 days.
For example, here is how to set this up with the Follow-Ups plugin. You could also set this up with AutomateWoo.
If the customer does not cancel their subscription, their payment method is charged.
Can I apply shipping costs for free-trial products?
No. The best way to do this would be to add a sign-up fee to your free-trial product. For example, I sell a premium men’s shaving subscription box for $20/month. I offer a 1 month free trial for more customers to try the shaving box out at $3.95 for their 1st month. I set the Sign-up fee as $3.95 and the Free trial to 1 month.
The customer pays $3.95 when signing up and their shave box is shipped to them. After the 1 month free trial, customers subscriptions renew for $20/month. For example, 1st month (when customer first purchases) is $3.95, 2nd month is $20.00, 3rd month is $20.00, 4th month is $20.00, etc.
Videos
If you are more of a visual learner, see how to set up and use this plugin with this video:
Simon,
This was a great video. I am in the same situation as Alan. I provide a service for customers and want them to use a coupon code to get a 1 or 2 free month trial. If they do not use the coupon code, then they will not get a free trial and pay immediately. Is there any way to set this up?
Hi,
I have a subscription product with 15 day trial. After trial expires and payment failed and subscription was cancelled, that user can subscribe once again and benefit from another trial period of 15 days?
How can I prevent that kind of fraud?
Thank you!
In the WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin, I am creating one product with a 7-day free trial, and after that, every month there is a $10 charge. And I am using Stripe and PayPal payments for it.
But my issue is that when I am using free trial days, it does not show payment methods in my account page.
Are you using the official WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin on the WooCommere website?
Someone really needs to implement a truly flexible coupon option for Woocommerce Subscriptions.
I’m currently looking for a way to offer a free trial with a coupon only, without giving the free trial to everyone. I’d also like to offer the coupon users to get a discount on the recurring rate as well.
I really like the way Paid Memberships Pro handles their coupons, as you get to define all aspects of the payment schedule for multiple memberships all in one coupon, including monthly, annual, and lifetime memberships.
Wish someone would create this type of coupon for Woocommerce Subscriptions.
Alan, I am looking for the EXACT same thing. Have the coupon code itself give a 1 month trial and a second coupon code that gives a 2 month trial. Did you ever find a solution for this?
Hi Simon. Fantastic article. How would you recommend I do this:
So I have an autoship program where I give them a free sample just pay $4.99 shipping then after 18 days they automatically (if they don’t cancel) get 2 bottles of the same vitamin c supplement. The sample is only 1 vitamin c bottle. But after 18 days they will get 2 vitamin c bottles for $69/month. How would I do this?
Simon, your content proves to be consistently helpful. This article helped me close out a customer support ticket today.
Thank you.
Thank you Mike!
how to set 1st month subscription fee total amount zero and don’t want to see recurring total and subtotal amount
Hey there! I just created a video that goes over how to remove the recurring totals on the Cart and Checkout page. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/Po5O3SvBEl8. Does this help?
This doesn’t answer the problem of wanting to provide a free trial for a product being sold as a one time payment. How is this done?
Hey John, you can add a free trial period to the beginning of a subscription. This period is added to any length you set for the subscription. For example, if you create a subscription product of $10 per month for 1 month with a 1-month free trial period, the subscription will expire after 2 months. The customer will not be charged for the free trial period (1st month) but will be charged 1 month later.
Is it possible to have a a free trial/charge $1 for 7 day trial period on a product that does not require a subscription? or better yet charge once after the 7 day trial period.
To break it down:
A product that is charged for $1 for a 7 day trial and then after those seven days they are charge for the full price ?
I cant seem to find any answer to this question.
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Is it possible to create a free trial for a product such that after 7 days there is a once off charge for lifetime access ? its seems super complex to just add a free trial to a product that you don’t want a subscription too.
Your tutorial is very useful… I facing an issue after trying for a free trial without using a credit card. after checking allow 0$ without payment method.. the error is occuring “Error processing checkout. Please try again.”. kindly provide a solution.
What payment processor are you using? If you are using Square can you try disconnecting and reconnecting it?
how can we add free trial for subscription all in one product?
Can you clarify how you want this set up? Do you currently having a “Simple subscription” or “Variable subscription” product? You are able to set the ‘Free trial’ period when editing the product (see screenshot below).