Please note that you must be enrolled in subscription billing to offer free trials.
All creators still using legacy billing will be required to switch to subscription billing by 1 November 2026. If you’d like one-to-one assistance during this transition, you must contact Support via your settings by 30 September 2026.
Subscription billing offers a more predictable model for you and your members, and unlocks features like Autopilot, Gifting, Discounts and Tier Repricing.
How it works
Free trials let potential members try out your membership for a seven-day trial period before they’re charged.
- Choose your tier(s). You can offer a 7-day trial for any or all of your tiers. We recommend starting free trials with your most popular tier
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Free trial members get all the benefits of their tier, including past posts (but not Merch). They’ll provide a payment method at subscription, but won’t be charged until the end of their trial period
- Please note that you won’t see earnings for a free trial tier until members are charged at the end of their trial period
- See how free trials help you grow. You can see which of your members joined through a free trial in Relationship manager and how many converted into paying members at the end of their trial in Insights
Free trial members are included in your active member count for the duration of their trial period. You can find a breakdown of free-trial members by using the paid status filter in your Relationship Manager or by visiting your Membership Insights dashboard.
Who can enable free trials?
Creators who use subscription billing can enable free trials. Creators whose work is categorised as Adult content must complete ID verification before free trials are available to them.
If you have questions about your eligibility, contact our support team.
Enabling free trials
You can enable free trials for any or all of your tiers directly from your Dashboard by following the steps below:
- From the left-side menu, click on Dashboard
- Select the Membership tab
- Navigate to the Paid membership tiers section and find the tier you want to enable free trials
- From the bottom-right corner of the tier, click Edit
- Scroll down and toggle on Free trials
- Click Save to apply the changes
- Repeat for any additional tiers
You can turn off free trials for new visitors at any time. If you disable the free trial option, existing members currently on a trial will complete their remaining trial period. Be sure to promote your free trial alongside any promotion of your membership to encourage fans to join.
FAQ
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Free trials are available to people who have never subscribed to you before. Members are allowed one free trial per account and form of payment to each creator.
Former members won’t have the option to start a free trial – they’ll only have the option to join and pay upfront for a tier with a free trial.
- Free trials are only available to creators on subscription billing.
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Visitors to your page will see Start free trial instead of Join now on your chosen trial tier(s). Anyone joining a free trial tier will automatically start on a free trial.
At checkout, they will need to enter a payment method but won’t be charged anything until the trial ends. They will then have immediate access to all the benefits in their tier, including past posts.
Free trial members will also receive a confirmation and welcome email (with the tier’s welcome note if you have one), just as paying members do.
You will also receive the new member notification email, which will specify that the member is on a free trial.
- At the end of the trial period, the member’s payment method will be charged for a full month and again monthly on that same date unless they cancel. They will receive an email confirming their payment and the standard welcome email from you.
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If a member decides to cancel their free trial, they can still enjoy all the membership benefits until the trial period ends.
If they sign up again after cancelling, they’ll have to pay the membership amount for whichever membership tier they choose. This applies whether they rejoin the same tier or choose a different one. The new membership starts immediately upon rejoining, and the previous free trial ends.
- You can filter by a member’s free trial status in the Relationship manager and message them accordingly. You can also see an overview of your free trial members in your Membership Insights dashboard.
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To see how your free trials are performing, visit Insights. Free trial members are included in your New member count for the duration of their trial. If a member cancels before the trial ends, they will appear as cancelled. In the Free trial activity section, you can check how many free trials were started, completed, converted into a paying member or cancelled within a selected time period. Please note that some started trials may still be in progress and aren’t yet eligible to be counted as converted.
Free trial members will not count in your New member count until they’ve been charged for their first payment.
- To turn off a free trial for a tier, visit your Membership tab to edit the tier and toggle off free trials. New members will no longer be able to join via a free trial. Members with an existing free trial will finish the remainder of their trial period.
- All free trials turn into monthly subscriptions at the end of the trial period. Members who wish to become annual members will need to edit their membership in their Active memberships tab.
- Custom pledging is not supported on free trials.
- Members on tiers that offer Merch for Membership will not start earning toward merch rewards until their first payment.
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Your integrations and webhooks will be given access to free trials just like paid members. Each integration may be different in how access is granted and removed.
For Discord, members will be granted appropriate roles for access based on tier eligibility. If they cancel, they will have their roles removed accordingly.
- Yes. However, members who join tiers with free trials will only be eligible for a Special Offer if they become a paid member at the end of their trial.
- We recently rolled out Apple’s in-app purchasing requirements to Patreon’s iOS mobile app, which currently does not support free trials on this system. We are working to support free trials in the iOS app as a fast follow. Fans can start a free trial on web, mobile web and Android.