Trial Periods

Configure free trial periods on membership plans with automatic conversion or expiration.

Trial periods let potential members experience your content before committing to a paid subscription. When a trial is active, the member has full access to the plan's content. When the trial ends, access either converts to paid (if a subscription payment was confirmed) or expires automatically.

Configuring Trials

Trials are configured at the plan level. Edit a plan in Memberships > Plans and set the Trial Days field to a positive number (e.g., 7 or 14).

Field	Description
Trial Days	Number of days for the free trial. Set to 0 to disable trials for this plan
Trial Expiry Notice Days	How many days before trial end to send the expiring notification (configured in global settings, default: 3)

When a membership is granted for a plan with trial days configured, the trial_ends_at field on the grant is set to the current date plus the trial days. The AccessEvaluator treats grants with a future trial_ends_at as active — the member has full access during the trial.

Trials Work With Any Validity Mode

Trials are independent of the plan's duration settings. You can have a 7-day trial on a lifetime plan, a 14-day trial on a yearly subscription, or any other combination. The trial period always starts when the membership is granted.

Trial Lifecycle

The TrialLifecycleService manages the complete trial lifecycle through the fchub_memberships_trial_check daily cron job.

Trial starts

When a membership with trial days is granted, the grant's trial_ends_at is set. The member gets immediate access to all plan content (including drip-scheduled content that has unlocked).

If FluentCRM is active, the TrialStartedTrigger fires, allowing you to start an onboarding automation for trial members.

Trial expiring notification

A configurable number of days before the trial ends (default: 3), the TrialLifecycleService::sendTrialExpiringNotifications() method sends a notification email.

The email includes:

Plan name
Trial end date
An upgrade URL (linking to the plan's page)

The hook fchub_memberships/trial_expiring_soon fires with the grant data and days remaining, regardless of whether the email is enabled. This allows FluentCRM's TrialExpiringSoonTrigger to fire automations.

Each grant is only notified once — the method sets trial_expiry_notified in the grant's meta to prevent duplicates.

Trial ends — conversion check

The daily cron calls TrialLifecycleService::checkTrialExpirations() to find active grants where trial_ends_at has passed. For each expired trial:

If a subscription payment exists:

The grant's source_type is updated to subscription
The trial_ends_at is cleared
The expires_at is calculated from the plan's duration settings
A TrialConvertedEmail is sent to the member
The fchub_memberships/trial_converted hook fires
An audit log entry is created

If no subscription payment exists:

The grant's status is changed to expired
The fchub_memberships/trial_expired hook fires
An audit log entry is created
The member loses access to all plan content

Payment Detection

The TrialLifecycleService checks for subscription payments by looking at the grant's source_ids array. For each source ID, it queries FluentCart's Subscription model and checks if the subscription status is active or completed.

This means conversion happens when:

The trial period ends (checked by daily cron)
The member's FluentCart subscription has received at least one successful payment

If the subscription exists but is in a failed or pending state, the trial expires rather than converts.

Trial Emails

Two email types are specific to trials:

TrialExpiringEmail

Sent a few days before the trial ends (configurable via trial_expiry_notice_days setting).

Data	Description
`plan_title`	Name of the membership plan
`trial_ends_at`	The exact trial end date
`upgrade_url`	URL to the plan's page for upgrading

TrialConvertedEmail

Sent when a trial successfully converts to a paid membership.

Data	Description
`plan_title`	Name of the membership plan
`expires_at`	The new expiration date (null for lifetime plans)

Both emails are dispatched via Action Scheduler for async delivery.

FluentCRM Integration

If FluentCRM is active, trials integrate deeply with automation:

Triggers

Trigger	When It Fires
`TrialStartedTrigger`	When a membership with trial days is granted
`TrialConvertedTrigger`	When a trial converts to paid
`TrialExpiredTrigger`	When a trial expires without payment
`TrialExpiringSoonTrigger`	X days before trial end (fires with days remaining)

Smart Codes

Smart Code	Value
`{{membership.trial_ends_at}}`	Trial end date formatted with site date format
`{{membership.trial_days_remaining}}`	Number of days left in the trial

Benchmarks

Benchmark	Description
`TrialConvertedBenchmark`	Contact has converted from trial to paid membership

Example: Trial-to-Paid Automation

A common FluentCRM automation flow for trials:

Trigger: TrialStarted
Action: Tag contact as "Trial Member"
Wait: 2 days
Action: Send "Getting the most from your trial" email
Wait: Until 2 days before trial ends
Benchmark: TrialExpiringSoon
Action: Send "Your trial ends soon — upgrade now" email with {{membership.checkout_url}}
Wait: Trial end date
Decision: TrialConverted benchmark
- Yes: Send "Welcome to paid membership" email, remove "Trial Member" tag, add "Paid Member" tag
- No: Send "We miss you — here's 20% off" email with coupon via CreateFluentCartCoupon action

Trial Periods

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