Members can use unlimited free trials?

Memberships & subscriptions
1

I have been testing with using free trials. There seems to be a loophole though that nullifies purpose of this feature.

For example:

  1. Member signs up using a free trial offer
  2. Member cancels subscription
  3. Member repeats (1) after period has ended and cancelation is final

This way, members can access paid content for free for an unlimited period.

I cannot imagine that this feature was meant to work this way, so I may overlook something simple. Can anyone help me out?

My test case has been as follows:

  1. Sign up using a free trial
  2. Login and cancel subscription
  3. Bypass cancelation period by cancelling the subscription immediately in Stripe
  4. Resubscribe, using the free trial again
2

If a member cancels their subscription after signing up for your free trial, they will remain free members. If they tried to sign up for another free trial of your paid subscription, they’d have to use a different email address.

This is the standard way free trials for subscription products work. If you’re particularly worried about bad actors abusing your free trial, then the best solution is to not offer a free trial.

My 2 cents is that people generally aren’t going to go to the effort of subscribing and cancelling on repeat :slight_smile:

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3

I have found this to be an issue and I literally have 3 different people doing this at the moment, one of them is on his 3rd trial and another one signed up immediately after. Some may be accidental and intending to subscribe but some are absolutely taking advantage of it.

I can find these people but I don’t even know if I can block them. I’m thinking of just executing the trial as a full subscription and charging them.

Does converting them to Free members block this?

Matt

4

It’s late December 2024 and this still exists. I had a separate report before finding this thread.

I’ve got a member whose used 3 free trials. I may be notifying him that future free trials will result in an immediate charge and just set an email filter to flag it if he subscribes again.

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