Along with the service/product that you're offering, additional features will bring more traction. These supplementary features can be provided at an appended cost and are known as Addons. With Chargebee you can provide addons for trial to your customers, so your customers know the feature before signing up for it.
Say, with your service you provide Google Calendar as an addon. For the customers who are interested in signing up, they can use the Google Calendar feature for a limited number of days as a trial before using it along with the subscription.
To enable this feature for your site, contact support .
Trial period for addons is available only via API . You can save the details of the addon's trial period in the metadata of the addon.
At the end of the trial period, the addons will move to Active state. When it does, a separate invoice is generated for the addon.
From the date of activation to the date of subscription renewal, a prorated charge will be generated for the addon.
Say, for a subscription with a billing cycle from January 15 to February 15, an addon was added as a trial on January 20 for 10 days. The addon will activate on January 30 and an invoice with a prorated charge will be raised for January 31 to February 15.
If the customer's subscription renews on the same day as the addon is activated, they will receive two invoices, one for the subscription and the other for the addon, irrespective of the number of addons.
Say, the customer has a subscription and has 3 addons on trial. Subscription renews on the same day as the addons become activated. The customer will receive 4 invoices, one for the subscription renewal and the other 3 for the addons.
A separate invoice will be generated at the end of add-on trial even when Consolidated Invoicing is enabled for your Chargebee site.
When subscriptions are canceled due to the dunning rules that are set, addons on trial will follow suit.
However, there are two scenarios to be taken into account during the reactivation of the subscription:
1. In-term Reactivation
If the subscription is reactivated before the renewal date/time of the subscription, then the addon will continue to function upon reactivation. There will not be a change in the trial end date/time set originally.
Say, the billing cycle for subscription is from January 15 to February 15. Subscription got canceled on January 30 and reactivated on February 10.
There are two addons, Addon 1 and Addon 2, linked to the subscription and are on trial for 15 days.
| Addons | Trial Period | Will the addon be on trial when the subscription reactivates? | Charge on reactivation |
| Addon 1 | January 20 - February 5 | No | Prorated charge from February 5 - February 15 |
| Addon 2 | January 27 - February 12 | Yes | No charge, the addon is still on trial. |
2. Out-of-term Reactivation
If the subscription is reactivated after the date/time of renewal, the term of the addon will be reset and the trial will be no longer applicable. The customer will have to pay for the subscription and the addons, regardless of the completion of the trial period.
Say, the billing cycle for subscription is from January 15 to February 15. Subscription got canceled on February 12 and reactivated on February 22.
| Addons | Trial Period | Will the addon be on trial when the subscription reactivates? | Charge on reactivation |
| Addon 1 | February 5 - February 20 | No | Full |
| Addon 2 | February 10 - February 25 | No | Full |
For both the addons, a full charge will be raised on the date of reactivation of subscription.
If Calendar Billing is enabled for your site, the charge can be prorated from the date/time of reactivation to the upcoming billing date/time.
When a subscription is canceled manually, the subscription term is not retained. The addons on trial linked to the same subscription will be canceled.
When the same subscription is reactivated, the subscription as well as the addons will move on to Active state and will be charged in full.