Membership trial periods

For customer purchases, a trial period gives a first-time member full membership benefits for a defined number of calendar days at the start of a recurring membership. Staff-added members also receive the configured trial. The trial can be free or have one fixed, tax-inclusive price.

Use a trial when you want to offer a separate calendar-day period before the fixed contract or termination-period commitment begins. You can either let the member terminate during the trial or require the membership to continue into its normal paid terms. If your offer should instead cover complete billing periods, use introductory pricing.

When trials are available

A built-in trial period is available only for a membership with Recurring payment.

Open Products → Memberships and create or edit a recurring membership. The trial controls are in the membership's basic details.

You configure:

• Trial period: Free trial or Discounted price.
• Trial period length: the number of calendar days using the trial price, at least one day.
• Trial price: the tax-inclusive amount charged once for a discounted trial.
• Allow termination during trial: whether the member may terminate before the trial ends.

The trial length is independent of the normal billing period. For example, a membership can have a 14-day trial and renew every 30 days afterward.

A one-time membership can still be designed as a separate short trial product, but it does not automatically continue into recurring billing and does not use this trial feature.

Who receives a trial

In the customer shop, the trial is available only to a customer who has never held that exact membership before.

Previous history makes the customer ineligible even when the earlier membership:

• expired;
• was cancelled during a trial;
• was terminated later;
• is no longer visible as active in the customer's wallet.

A customer who has held another membership can still be eligible. Eligibility is tracked separately for each membership product.

Thril checks this after sign-in and again at checkout. A trial shown to an anonymous visitor can disappear after the visitor signs in if their membership history makes them ineligible. An ineligible customer joins at the normal price and does not receive the membership's introductory pricing or purchase discounts.

When staff add a member manually, the selected payment status controls the initial payment and the configured trial is applied even if that person held the membership before. The form does not separately collect a fixed trial price. Introductory pricing remains first-time only.

What the customer pays when joining

Free trial

The immediate price is zero. Thril still completes a real membership purchase and activation, so the membership and its payment history are created normally without an external charge.

Discounted-price trial

The customer pays the configured Trial price once. The normal recurring membership price is shown as the later renewal price.

A customer who is not eligible

The customer pays the normal membership price when joining. The trial price is not used.

Other checkout discounts

When an eligible trial applies, its price determines the initial charge. Membership purchase discounts and promo-code discounts do not reduce the trial charge further. If the customer has no prior history and no trial applies, an eligible purchase discount can apply.

The trial lifecycle

Assume a membership has a 14-day free trial and then renews every 30 days.

1. The member joins

• The trial begins immediately.
• The member receives the membership's normal benefits.
• The member can use eligible reservation discounts, booking rights, shared benefits, and access-control features.
• The wallet and staff member details show when the trial ends.

2. The trial remains active

The trial is a membership period, not a restricted preview. Benefits work normally unless the membership is separately paused or otherwise ineligible.

The fixed contract or termination-period commitment has not begun yet. If Allow termination during trial is enabled, the member can terminate without entering those paid obligations. If it is disabled, the member cannot terminate until the trial has ended.

3. The trial reaches its end

At the trial boundary, Thril processes the first recurring renewal:

• If introductory pricing exists, the first introductory price is used.
• Otherwise, the normal recurring price is used.
• For a fixed contract, paid contract counting begins with this first post-trial period.
• For an open-ended membership with a termination period, normal termination rules apply from this point onward.

4. Normal recurring billing continues

After all introductory periods have been used, Thril charges the member's normal recurring price on each due date.

Termination during a trial

The Allow termination during trial setting controls whether a member can terminate an active trial.

When the setting is enabled, the member can terminate without starting the fixed contract or termination period.

When they cancel:

• no additional committed or notice periods are added;
• no further renewal is scheduled after the trial;
• benefits remain available until the trial end unless another restriction applies;
• the membership expires at the trial boundary.

The original trial charge is not automatically refunded. If you have agreed to refund a discounted trial, handle that refund separately.

After the trial has ended, the membership follows its normal fixed-contract or termination rules.

When the setting is disabled:

• the terminate action is not available while the trial is active;
• the membership automatically continues to the first post-trial renewal;
• the fixed contract or termination-period commitment begins normally at that boundary;
• the member can terminate only when the membership's normal termination rules allow it.

Trials with fixed contracts

The trial does not count as one of the fixed paid periods.

Example:

Trial: 14 days
Fixed contract: 12 periods
Billing period: 30 days

The member receives 14 trial days followed by 12 contract periods. The first of those 12 periods begins at the first renewal after the trial.

An introductory-priced renewal still counts as a contract period. Introductory pricing changes the amount, not the commitment.

Trials and membership pauses

A trial member can have a pause when the selected pause type is otherwise available. Benefits are unavailable while the pause is active, just as for any other member.

What happens at the first renewal depends on the pause type:

This distinction matters when arranging a pause that crosses the trial boundary. See Date-based pauses and Period-based pauses for the complete billing behavior.

Changing trial settings

Editing or removing a trial changes the offer for future eligible members. It does not change an existing member's trial end, trial charge, normal price, or commitment.

When you change a live membership, check the customer-facing description and purchase confirmation email so that the advertised terms match the current configuration.

Example: trial followed by introductory pricing

Trial: 7 days free
Introductory pricing: 2 periods at €25
Normal price: €50 every 30 days

The member pays nothing when joining, then €25 at each of the first two renewals. The third renewal and later renewals are €50.

Return to Membership pricing and trials for the full comparison.