A free trial (30 or 7 days) allows your community to try out being a member before making a financial commitment. Offering a trial membership for a limited time is a great way to create a sense of urgency around your memberships and boost your membership numbers for the long term.

If a user chooses to sign up for a trial membership, we will still record their payment information, but the payment will not be processed until the end of the trial period. If they cancel their membership during the trial, they will not be charged.

Note: trial memberships are switched off by default – you decide whether to offer them on your plans.

1. Inside the Steady backend, go to: Settings > Business > Plans.

2. Underneath your plans, you will find the option to activate a trial period. Trials run for 30 days; a 7-day trial period is also supported.

3. Switch the toggle to the right to enable trial memberships, or to the left to disable. Then hit “Save”.

Trial memberships work especially well when you offer exclusive members-only content – then, any members on a trial will get a good peek at what they’ve been missing.

For example, you might use the Steady Paywall feature to offer certain articles only to paying members. When a user signs up for a 30-day trial, they’ll be able to access articles behind the paywall, but only for that 30-day period.