Subscription Trials & Types
SaaSykit allows you to offer your users two types of trials (payment-provider-managed and locally-managed) based on your business model and user preferences.
You can offer a normal "payment provider"-managed trial where the user goes through the checkout process and is expected to provide their payment details before they can start the trial.
You can also offer a "trial without credit card" (or "trial without payment") in which the user can start the trial without providing any payment details.
You can easily switch the type of the trial from the admin panel at any time. This means that you can do A/B testing to see which type of trial works best for your users and then stick with it.
In order to understand how those two types of trials are handled within SaaSykit, let's first understand how subscriptions are structured.
SaaSykit has two types of subscriptions:
- Payment-Provider-Managed Subscriptions
- Locally-Managed Subscriptions
1. Payment-Provider-Managed Subscriptions
A payment_provider_managed subscription is a subscription that is managed by the payment provider (Stripe, Paddle, etc). This means that the payment provider is responsible for handling the subscription lifecycle (updating, canceling, etc) and billing the customer at the end of the billing period.
And in order for the payment provider to have full-control over the subscription, the customer is expected to provide their payment details (credit card, PayPal, etc) before they can start the subscription. This is because the payment provider needs to charge the customer at the end of the billing/trial period.
This is the default type of subscription that you can offer to your users in SaaSykit.
2. Locally-Managed Subscriptions
A locally_managed subscription is a subscription that is managed by SaaSykit itself. This means that SaaSykit is responsible for handling the subscription lifecycle (updating, canceling, etc). This is an "off-the-grid" subscription that is not connected to any payment provider (yet).
Locally-managed subscriptions can be used to offer your customers a "trial without credit card", or you can just use them to manage subscriptions without connecting to any payment provider (for example: if your customers are paying you in cash, and you would like to manage their subscriptions through admin panel manually).
The "best" end goal for a locally-managed subscription is to be converted into a payment-provider managed subscription once the customer is ready to provide their payment details.
Converting from Locally-Managed to Payment-Provider-Managed Subscription
SaaSykit offers two separate checkout flows for those two types of subscriptions to customize the user experience based on the type of subscription the user is subscribing to.
Locally-managed subscriptions are currently used for offering a "trial without credit card" to your users but you can use them for other purposes as well. (like managing subscriptions for customers who are paying you in cash as mentioned above).
When a user subscribes to a locally-managed subscription, they will be redirected to a checkout page where they can start the trial without providing any payment details.
Before the trial ends, the user will receive 2 notifications, one 3 days before the trial ends, and another notification one day before the trial ends (customizable from the admin panel). The notifications will remind the user that the trial is about to end and that they need to provide their payment details to continue using the service.
User can also "convert" their locally-managed subscription to a payment-provider managed subscription at any time from their dashboard. This will redirect the user to the checkout page where they can provide their payment details and convert the subscription to a payment-provider managed subscription.
Once a user converts their locally-managed subscription to a payment-provider managed subscription, the billing cycle will start from the day the user converted the subscription. This means that if the user has some days left in their trial, those days will be lost and the user will be billed immediately.
Paddle is not supported when converting from locally-managed to payment-provider-managed subscription. This is because a payment provider has to have the ability to "skip-trial" when creating a subscription, becaus when converting from locally-managed to payment-provider-managed subscription, the user has essentially taken the trial and is ready to pay. Paddle does not have this feature.
Create a Locally-Managed Subscription from Admin Panel
You can also create a locally-managed subscription from the admin panel.
To do that, go to the Admin Panel under "Subscriptions" click on "Create Subscription" then click on "New Locally-Managed Subscription".
You need to enter the following information about your new locally-managed subscription:
- User: The user who will be subscribed to the subscription.
- Plan: The plan that the user will be subscribed to.
- End Date: The end date of the subscription. This is the date when the subscription will end. If you want the subscription to be a trial, then you can set the end date to be the end of the trial period.
Subscription Trials Settings
You can easily change the type of the trial from the admin panel at any time.
To change the type of the trial and notification settings, go to the Admin Panel under "Settings" click on "General Settings" then click on "Subscription Trials".
Limiting User Trials
SaaSykit allows you to limit the number of trials a user can have. This is useful if you want to prevent users from abusing the trial system by using the trial multiple times.
If a user reached the limit that you set, the user will not be able to start a new trial, but rather they will be redirected to the checkout page where they can provide their payment details and start a paid subscription.
You can find the setting to limit the number of trials a user can have in the admin panel under "Settings" click on "General Settings" then click on "Subscription Trials".
You can either enable or disable the limit, and set the number of trials a user can have.
Paddle does not have the ability to "skip-trial" when creating a subscription, so this means that if the user has reached the limit of trials, Paddle will be filtered out from the list of payment providers that the user can choose from to pay for their subscription.