A “try before you buy” sales experience has become a pillar of the Product Lead Growth/self-service sales world, however getting a trial right is more nuanced than you might think.
We implemented a credit card upfront trial at Codecademy and had a huge conversion win, which taught me a lot about what makes an effective experience.
There are always people who will buy your product no matter what.
There are always people who will never buy your product.
A good trial experience converts the people who are hesitant but could be convinced.
Product Trials vs. Other Sales Models
For 90% of products that are sold online, there are 4 core sales motions.
Direct Purchase - e.g pay now for access
Direct Purchase + Guarantee - Pay now for access, we’ll guarantee that this will work for you or your money back
Trials - Experience the paid product for x days, y uses, etc. then decide if you want to buy
Freemium - Certain things are free forever, certain things are paid forever
In reality, these models are mixed and matched, as you can have a freemium product that allows people to have a trial of the paid tier, but for clarity's sake, you can think of them independently.
The further you move down this list, the less risk that your customer feels but also the slower that you'll collect cash from sales.
From the company's perspective, you want to be as high up on this list as possible.
From the customer’s perspective, you want to be as low down this list as possible.
The goal of testing your sales flow is to see where you have to meet in the middle. You want to give away as little as you have to.
The Goal of a Product Trial
The job of a trial is to allow the user to experience the paid product for just long enough to see the value and no longer.
How long it will take to see this value depends on:
Who your customer is
How often the customer experiences the problem you solve
How much they trust your product & your company
If you’re building a database solution for enterprise customers, they might need 180 days to get up to speed and see the value.
However, if you’re building a running companion app for serious athletes, they might be able to see the value in 72 hours.
It all depends on the context of the user.
Additionally, as companies mature, they start to offer different trial experiences for different customer types.
Key Product Trial Design Decisions
To set up a trial, there are 2 key decisions that you’ll have to make
What is the “cost” or friction that the customer needs to pay?
To make a trial effective, the customer has to “pay” with something or overcome some level of friction to get started.
In the consumer space, the best practice is currently to have them input a credit card to begin the trial.
Effectively all consumer-focused product that has a trial using this model (such as Headspace, Peleton, Spotify, etc)
If you’re building a consumer product right now, don't overthink this part and just use a credit card trial upfront.
For business-focused (or B2B) products, the best practices are a lot less clear.
What makes B2B different is that the user might not end up being the buyer of the product due to how budgets/purchase approvals work.
Therefore, your user, who is interested in your product and wants to check it out, might not have the ability to put in a credit card.
Products like MongoDB have helped popularize the Product Led Growth movement, where they let a user get started for free with no credit card required.
This works because:
Setting up a database is a lot of work, so onboarding has built in friction
Actually buying the product for large companies is likely in the 5-6 figure range, so that’s beyond what most people will charge on a credit card.
The sales cycles can be long, so having users already on the product will help them move the sale process forward.
Miro combines all of these tactics but in a subtle way. They have a free tier, a direct purchase tier, and a credit card upfront tier.
They are (likely) only offering a credit card up front trial on their business plan as that's the plan they actually want you to buy.
How long should it be?
Building on the above advice, you’ll need to make this trial long enough so that the user experiences the value, but no longer.
The hardest part about managing a trial is trying to determine how long that period or usage is.
The best advice to early-stage companies is to default to being generous here. Start with a longer window and then test making it shorter.
As we talked about a few months back, most major companies start with more generous trial windows and pull them back with time:
Netflix cut their streaming service trial from 30 days to 14 days, to 7 days, to no trial at all.
The NY Times used to offer 10 free articles per month, then cut it to 5 articles, then cut it to 3 articles.
Miro once upon a time gave away unlimited boards, then cut it to 10 boards, then to 3 boards.
The more that you give away initially, the more people will experience your product and the faster your brand will grow. However, this comes at the expense of your immediate revenue and conversion.
Additionally, the length of your trial can be used as both a tool against your competitors and to help mitigate other business constraints.
Hulu offers a free month likely in response to the other streaming services (like HBO, Netflix and Peacock) not offering any trials.
Paramount offers a free week - This might be slightly too short to satisfy the habit requirement, however, they need to compensate for their library being significantly smaller than their competitors. With a longer trial, I would guess most people would just binge-watch Yellowstone and then cancel.
Spotify offers 3 free months - Likely a bid to acquire more users from their competitors, Amazon Music responded by also increasing their trial to 3 months
Product Trial Metrics to Track
If you're running a product trial, there are four numbers you really need to watch.
Trial-to-paid conversion rate. This is the headline metric. For consumer products with credit card upfront trials, 50-70% is a solid benchmark — the card is already on file, so the default is to convert. For B2B products with no credit card required, 15-25% is strong. If you're below these ranges, the problem is usually one of the mistakes in the next section.
Time to activation. How quickly do trial users hit your "aha moment"? If most users who convert do so after experiencing a specific feature or completing a specific action, measure how long that takes. Then work on compressing it. At Codecademy, we found that users who completed their first lesson within 24 hours were dramatically more likely to convert. That single metric reshaped our entire trial experience.
Trial engagement rate. What percentage of trial users are actually using the product? If someone starts a trial and never logs back in, they're not going to convert. Track daily or weekly active usage during the trial period. Low engagement means your onboarding needs work, not your trial length.
Cost per trial user. If your product has variable costs (streaming rights, compute, physical goods), you need to know what each trial user costs you. This sets the ceiling on how generous your trial can be. A streaming service giving away 30 days of free access has a very different cost structure than a SaaS tool giving away 14 days.
The Product Trial Mistakes That Kill Conversion
After working on trials at Codecademy and advising subscription businesses on this for years, I see the same mistakes repeatedly.
No onboarding during the trial. The trial itself is not the product experience — it's just the window. If you hand someone access and walk away, most won't figure out your product on their own. The trial period is your best window for guided onboarding: emails, in-app prompts, and nudges that push users toward the activation moment. The companies with the best trial conversion rates treat the trial as an onboarding program, not a timer.
Treating all trial users the same. A power user who's explored every feature in 3 days needs a very different nudge than someone who hasn't logged in since day 1. Segment your trial users by engagement level and adjust your messaging accordingly. The "you haven't logged in yet" email is a completely different message from the "ready to go pro?" email.
Making the upgrade path confusing. I've seen trials where the upgrade button was buried 3 clicks deep, or where the pricing page looked completely different from what the user experienced during the trial. The transition from trial to paid should be one click, with zero surprises. Show them exactly what they'll keep and exactly what it costs.
Not following up with non-converters. Someone who tried your product and didn't convert is not gone forever. They experienced your product, which is more than most prospects can say. A well-timed "your trial ended — here's what you missed" email 7-14 days after expiration converts at surprisingly decent rates. We saw 5-8% win-back rates on these at Codecademy. That's free revenue from people you already acquired.
Product Trial Best Practices
If you are implementing a trial for the first time, I would start with a relatively basic model, you can always iterate on this later.
Additionally, I would watch out for the following “gotchas”
Longer trials slow down the payback cycle on paid ads - So if your company acquires primarily through paid media, how fast you can grow is partially dependent on how fast you collect money and re-deploy it to buy ads. The longer the trial, the more delay there will be.
The longer your trial, the fewer shots you have at improving it each year - Skillshare (back in the day) ran 90 90-day free trial, which apparently was the best at converting users, however really slows down product development. A trial this long means that they only had 3-4 tests they could run per year to improve it.
If you have a material cost to provide your product (such as streaming music rights, physical products, etc.) your trial user (can) become a material expense. Remember to factor this in and don’t go broke :)
Trials can be a huge step forward for a company if implemented correctly and they are worth re-testing the model every few quarters to see what additional conversion you can find.
Related Guides
Go deeper on the topics covered in this article:
The Subscription Model Guide — choosing between freemium, trials, and direct purchase
Churn Rate: What It Really Costs You — the math behind why trial design impacts long-term retention
Customer Retention Strategies — nailing the first 30 days and beyond
Customer Lifetime Value — how trial conversion impacts LTV
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