Offer a trial period

DocsCurrentLast updated: June 20th 2023, @ 12:08:42 pm

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

Example: Music service

Example: Online tutorial service

See also