Offer a trial period

DOCSCURRENT

Last updated: Feb 27th, 8:12am

Overview

Use a trial period to let subscribers try your product at a free or discounted price before regular billing cycles start. After the trial period ends, the regular billing period for the subscription begins. You can have up to 2 trial periods per plan. The following sample requests show how to offer trial periods. Use these samples to adjust your code when you create a plan.

Example: Music service

The following example creates a trial period with the following characteristics:

$0 for the first month.
$15 per month following the trial period.

1curl -v –X POST https://api-m.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/billing/plans 
2-H "PayPal-Auth-Assertion: AUTH-ASSERTION" 
3-H "Accept: application/json" 
4-H "Authorization: Bearer ACCESS-TOKEN" 
5-H "Content-Type: application/json" 
6-H "PayPal-Request-Id: PLAN-18062020-002" 
7-d '{
8"name": "Premium Music Plus", 
9"description": "A premium plan with music download feature", 
10"product_id": "PROD-5RN21878H3527870P", 
11"billing_cycles": [{
12  "frequency": {
13    "interval_unit": "MONTH",
14    "interval_count": 1
15  },
16  "tenure_type": "TRIAL",
17  "sequence": 1,
18  "total_cycles": 1,
19  "pricing_scheme": {
20    "fixed_price": {
21      "value": "0",
22      "currency_code": "USD"
23    }
24  }
25}, {
26  "frequency": {
27    "interval_unit": "MONTH",
28    "interval_count": 1
29  },
30  "tenure_type": "REGULAR",
31  "sequence": 2,
32  "total_cycles": 0,
33  "pricing_scheme": {
34    "fixed_price": {
35      "value": "15",
36      "currency_code": "USD"
37    }
38  }
39}], "payment_preferences": {
40  "auto_bill_outstanding": true,
41  "payment_failure_threshold": 1
42 }
43}'

Example: Online tutorial service

The following example creates a trial period with the following characteristics:

$0 free trial for the first week.
$5 per week discounted trial for the next 3 weeks.
$10 per week following the trial period.

1curl -v –X POST https://api-m.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/billing/plans 
2-H "PayPal-Auth-Assertion: AUTH-ASSERTION" 
3-H "Accept: application/json" 
4-H "Authorization: Bearer ACCESS-TOKEN" 
5-H "Content-Type: application/json" 
6-H "PayPal-Request-Id: PLAN-18062020-003" 
7-d '{
8 "name": "Music Tutorial Premium Plus", 
9 "description": "Offering a premium music tutorial with download feature", 
10 "product_id": "PROD-5RN21878H3527870P", 
11 "billing_cycles": [{
12   "frequency": {
13     "interval_unit": "WEEK",
14     "interval_count": 1
15  },
16  "tenure_type": "TRIAL",
17  "sequence": 1,
18  "total_cycles": 1,
19  "pricing_scheme": {
20    "fixed_price": {
21      "value": "0",
22      "currency_code": "USD"
23    }
24  }
25}, {
26  "frequency": {
27    "interval_unit": "WEEK",
28    "interval_count": 1
29  },
30  "tenure_type": "TRIAL",
31  "sequence": 2,
32  "total_cycles": 3,
33  "pricing_scheme": {
34    "fixed_price": {
35      "value": "5",
36      "currency_code": "USD"
37    }
38  }
39}, {
40  "frequency": {
41    "interval_unit": "WEEK",
42    "interval_count": 1
43  },
44  "tenure_type": "REGULAR",
45  "sequence": 3,
46  "total_cycles": 0,
47  "pricing_scheme": {
48    "fixed_price": {
49      "value": "10",
50      "currency_code": "USD"
51    }
52  }
53}], "payment_preferences": {
54  "auto_bill_outstanding": true,
55  "payment_failure_threshold": 1
56 }
57}'

Offer a trial period

Overview

Example: Music service

Example: Online tutorial service

See also

If you accept cookies, we’ll use them to improve and customize your experience and enable our partners to show you personalized PayPal ads when you visit other sites. Manage cookies and learn more