Introduction

Offering free trial periods can be an effective way for subscription-based merchants to showcase their services without requiring any commitment from the consumer. A downside to free trials, however, is that they can attract "trial junkies" - those who sign up just to get the free stuff, with no intention of ever buying a subscription. One way to cut down on trial junkies and increase the likelihood that free trials convert to members: require a valid credit card to access your trial. Use Free Trial Validation to ensure that all credit cards submitted for your free trials are validated by the bank.

 

Setting up a Free Trial Validation

When you create a Recurring, Dynamic Recurring or Instant Conversion price point with an initial price of $0, you can add Free Trial Validation to ensure a good card is entered, without ever charging anything. Behind the scenes, cards are pre-authorized for $1, however that amount is never actually charged. When creating your price point in the Segpay Merchant Portal, just select the Free Trial Validation option.

 

Free Trial Validation will be available only when your initial price is $0 (i.e., a free trial).

 

Leave this option un-selected to allow access to your free trials without a valid card. Another option is a Delayed Capture price point, which pre-authorizes the recurring amount at signup, guaranteeing that the rebill amount is available at the end of the trial. Delayed Capture pricing can help your signup approval rate while also helping convert more trials to full memberships.

 

Reporting

Both the Transaction Detail and Detail Ledger reports can show which of your sales included Free Trial Validation. When you run these reports, select Advanced Options and choose Free Trial Validation. The reports will include a new column to show if a transaction included a free trial validation and, if so, will show the amount as $0.

 

 

 

 

The Transaction Summary report will include Free Trial Validations in your total signup counts, although amounts are not affected (since they are $0).

 

Note that processing fees do apply to Free Trial Validation transactions.

 

Postback Notifications

If you have set up transactional postbacks, you will be notified about Free Trial Validation signups. Postbacks triggered by these signups will reflect a $0 amount.

See our documentation for help setting up postback notifications.

 

Please feel free to let us know any thoughts or suggestions you have about Free Trial Validation or anything else, by emailing [email protected].