Can I offer a paid trial without a plugin?

No, not with WordPress alone. WordPress does not process recurring payments or remove membership access when a trial ends. You can configure an existing membership, LMS, or ecommerce subscription extension if it supports an initial fee and trial period, but building the feature from scratch also requires payment-token handling, renewals, failed-payment logic, cancellations, and access control.

How do I charge for the trial and then start normal billing?

Use a one-time sign-up fee for the trial charge and a separate recurring subscription price for the normal plan. Set the trial duration between those two charges. In WooCommerce Subscriptions, the sign-up fee is charged immediately, while the recurring subscription price starts after the trial period.

Do customers need to enter a card for a paid trial?

Usually, yes, if you want the subscription to renew automatically when the trial ends. The payment gateway must support recurring payments and securely save or tokenise the payment method. If you collect no payment method, the customer may need to return and pay manually, and the subscription can become on hold when the first renewal is due.

What happens if a customer cancels during the trial?

That depends on your subscription system and cancellation rules, so test it before launch. The important checks are whether cancellation prevents the first recurring charge, whether access ends immediately or at the trial end, and whether the upfront trial payment is refundable. Explain those rules on the checkout page instead of relying on a generic cancellation message.

Why does checkout say that no payment methods are available?

The usual cause is that none of the enabled gateways supports subscription renewals for the product. Check that the gateway is connected, enabled, and listed as supporting subscriptions in the store status report. A gateway that accepts ordinary product payments may still be unable to process automatic subscription renewals.

How to offer paid trials for subscriptions

Membership & LMS Time About 30–45 minutes 6 steps Updated 31 Oct 2026

The short answer

WordPress does not offer paid subscription trials by itself. Use a membership, LMS, or subscription system that combines an upfront sign-up fee with a trial period, then starts regular billing when the trial ends. Test the gateway and expiry behaviour before publishing.

The route

01Define the trial offer
02Check your existing stack
03Combine a fee and trial
04Connect a recurring gateway
05Test the trial lifecycle
06Use the fast route

What you need

A WordPress membership, LMS, or subscription setup
Admin access to the site
A payment gateway that supports recurring payments
Your trial price, duration, renewal price, and cancellation terms

Define the trial offer

Write down the exact customer journey before changing settings. For example, charge $5 today, provide access for 14 days, then charge $25 per month until the customer cancels.

Decide whether the upfront amount is a one-time trial fee, whether customers must provide a payment method, and what happens when they cancel during the trial. Show these terms beside the checkout button.

Check your existing stack

WordPress core does not manage recurring charges, trial expiry, or membership access on its own. Check whether your membership or LMS plugin already supports a recurring plan with a trial period and an initial fee.

If it does not, custom code is not a complete fix: you would still need secure payment-token handling, recurring billing, failed-payment handling, access revocation, and customer cancellation. That is the main drawback of trying to build this manually.

Combine a fee and trial

With a subscription system such as WooCommerce Subscriptions, create a subscription product and set the normal renewal amount and billing interval. Add the paid trial amount as the one-time sign-up fee, then set the free trial period to the length of the paid access period.

This combination charges the sign-up fee immediately, gives access during the trial, and starts the normal recurring charge when the trial ends. WooCommerce documents this behaviour explicitly: a sign-up fee is charged at checkout even when a free trial is present.

Connect a recurring gateway

Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Payments, enable your payment provider, and confirm that its subscription support is active. The gateway must support automatic recurring payments if you want the renewal to happen without the customer returning to checkout.

If no enabled gateway supports subscriptions, checkout can show no available payment method. Check the payment gateway support section under WooCommerce → Status before launching. Manual renewal payments are possible, but they require customers to pay each renewal themselves.

Test the trial lifecycle

Run a complete test with a test product or a short trial. Confirm the amount charged at signup, the access granted during the trial, the next payment date, the renewal amount, the cancellation path, and what happens after a failed renewal.

Pay particular attention to trials with no sign-up fee. If no payment method is collected and the first renewal fails or cannot be processed, the subscription may move to an on-hold state rather than automatically continuing access. Also prevent repeat trials if your business allows only one trial per customer; WooCommerce provides a subscription limit for this use case.

Use the fast route

If you want paid, time-limited trials without assembling the settings yourself, GetPaid – Paid Trials is the quicker route. It is designed for subscription-based products and adds trial duration settings, payment gateway support, expiry reminders, and trial management in WordPress.

Install and activate the plugin, configure the trial amount, duration, renewal terms, notifications, and payment method, then test the checkout and expiry emails before sending visitors to the offer.

The fast route

Let GetPaid do it

Adds discounted, time-limited paid trials with gateway support and expiry reminders for subscription-based products.

Get GetPaid

Sources

woocommerce.com /document/subscriptions/creating-subscription-products/?utm_…
woocommerce.com /document/subscriptions/payment-gateways/enabling-payment-ga…

Questions

Can I offer a paid trial without a plugin?: No, not with WordPress alone. WordPress does not process recurring payments or remove membership access when a trial ends. You can configure an existing membership, LMS, or ecommerce subscription extension if it supports an initial fee and trial period, but building the feature from scratch also requires payment-token handling, renewals, failed-payment logic, cancellations, and access control.
How do I charge for the trial and then start normal billing?: Use a one-time sign-up fee for the trial charge and a separate recurring subscription price for the normal plan. Set the trial duration between those two charges. In WooCommerce Subscriptions, the sign-up fee is charged immediately, while the recurring subscription price starts after the trial period.
Do customers need to enter a card for a paid trial?: Usually, yes, if you want the subscription to renew automatically when the trial ends. The payment gateway must support recurring payments and securely save or tokenise the payment method. If you collect no payment method, the customer may need to return and pay manually, and the subscription can become on hold when the first renewal is due.
What happens if a customer cancels during the trial?: That depends on your subscription system and cancellation rules, so test it before launch. The important checks are whether cancellation prevents the first recurring charge, whether access ends immediately or at the trial end, and whether the upfront trial payment is refundable. Explain those rules on the checkout page instead of relying on a generic cancellation message.
Why does checkout say that no payment methods are available?: The usual cause is that none of the enabled gateways supports subscription renewals for the product. Check that the gateway is connected, enabled, and listed as supporting subscriptions in the store status report. A gateway that accepts ordinary product payments may still be unable to process automatic subscription renewals.