Using Trial Periods on Subscriptions

Delay payments on active subscriptions using trial periods. If you need help after reading this, check out our answers to common questions or chat live with other developers in #stripe on freenode.

You can start a customer’s subscription with a free trial period by providing a trial_period_days argument when subscribing the customer to a plan:

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/subscriptions \
   -u sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2: \
   -d customer=cus_4fdAW5ftNQow1a \
   -d plan=pro-monthly \
   -d trial_period_days=7

# Set your secret key: remember to change this to your live secret key in production
# See your keys here: https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/apikeys
Stripe.api_key = "sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2"

Stripe::Subscription.create(
  :customer => "cus_4fdAW5ftNQow1a",
  :plan => "pro-monthly",
  :trial_period_days => 7,
)

# Set your secret key: remember to change this to your live secret key in production
# See your keys here: https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/apikeys
stripe.api_key = "sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2"

stripe.Subscription.create(
  customer="cus_4fdAW5ftNQow1a",
  plan="pro-monthly",
  trial_period_days=7,
)

// Set your secret key: remember to change this to your live secret key in production
// See your keys here: https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/apikeys
\Stripe\Stripe::setApiKey("sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2");

\Stripe\Subscription::create(array(
  "customer" => "cus_4fdAW5ftNQow1a",
  "plan" => "pro-monthly",
  "trial_period_days" => 7,
));

// Set your secret key: remember to change this to your live secret key in production
// See your keys here: https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/apikeys
Stripe.apiKey = "sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2";

Map<String, Object> params = new HashMap<String, Object>();
params.put("customer", "cus_4fdAW5ftNQow1a");
params.put("plan", "pro-monthly");
params.put("trial_period_days", 7);

Subscription subscription = Subscription.create(params);

// Set your secret key: remember to change this to your live secret key in production
// See your keys here: https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/apikeys
var stripe = require("stripe")("sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2");

stripe.subscriptions.create({
  customer: "cus_4fdAW5ftNQow1a",
  plan: "pro-monthly",
  trial_period_days: 7,
}, function(err, subscription) {
  // asynchronously called
});

// Set your secret key: remember to change this to your live secret key in production
// See your keys here: https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/apikeys
stripe.Key = "sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2"

params := &stripe.SubParams{
  Customer: "cus_4fdAW5ftNQow1a",
  Plan: "pro-monthly",
  TrialPeriodDays: 7,
}
subscription, err := sub.New(params)

When creating a subscription with a trial period, no payment method is required for the customer. An immediate invoice is still created, but for $0.

Three days before the trial period is up, a customer.subscription.trial_will_end event is sent to your webhook endpoint. You can use that notification as a trigger to take any necessary actions, such as emailing your customer that billing for the plan is about to begin.

Once the trial period is up, Stripe generates an invoice and sends an invoice.created event notification. Approximately an hour later, Stripe attempts to charge that invoice.

To activate a subscription without waiting for the trial period to end, make an update subscription API call, setting the trial_end value to now:

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/subscriptions/sub_49ty4767H20z6a \
   -u sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2: \
   -d trial_end=now

# Set your secret key: remember to change this to your live secret key in production
# See your keys here: https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/apikeys
Stripe.api_key = "sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2"

subscription = Stripe::Subscription.retrieve("sub_49ty4767H20z6a")
subscription.trial_end = "now"
subscription.save

# Set your secret key: remember to change this to your live secret key in production
# See your keys here: https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/apikeys
stripe.api_key = "sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2"

subscription = stripe.Subscription.retrieve("sub_49ty4767H20z6a")
subscription.trial_end = "now"
subscription.save()

// Set your secret key: remember to change this to your live secret key in production
// See your keys here: https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/apikeys
\Stripe\Stripe::setApiKey("sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2");

$subscription = \Stripe\Subscription::retrieve("sub_49ty4767H20z6a");
$subscription->trial_end = "now";
$subscription->save();

// Set your secret key: remember to change this to your live secret key in production
// See your keys here: https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/apikeys
Stripe.apiKey = "sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2";

Subscription subscription = Subscription.retrieve("sub_49ty4767H20z6a");

Map<String, Object> params = new HashMap<String, Object>();
params.put("trial_end", "now");

subscription.update(params);

// Set your secret key: remember to change this to your live secret key in production
// See your keys here: https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/apikeys
var stripe = require("stripe")("sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2");

stripe.subscriptions.update("sub_49ty4767H20z6a",
  { trial_end: "now" },
  function(err, subscription) {
    // asynchronously called
  }
);

// Set your secret key: remember to change this to your live secret key in production
// See your keys here: https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/apikeys
stripe.Key = "sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2"

params := &stripe.SubParams{
  TrialEndNow: true,
}
subscription, err := sub.Update("sub_49ty4767H20z6a", params)

Next steps

Now that you understand how to use trial periods, you may want to check out: