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Visa is updating its rules to enable transparency, choice, and control for customers regarding transactions that involve trial-to-paid subscription conversion. This change applies only to businesses that offer free trials as part of their ongoing subscription service.
Cardholders often forget the terms they agree to when providing their card details for a trial. Therefore, when they are suddenly charged, they may not recognize the reason for the charge.
Visa identified two major issues that businesses need to address:
Addressing these issues helps enhance customer experience, clarify charges, and bring specificity to disputes. These rules are strongly recommended for businesses that offer trials and allow customers to pay using Visa cards.
Visa has listed requirements you must comply with if you offer trials:
Chargebee has listed features that need to be enabled to comply with these requirements. These rules apply to all Visa cards, regardless of the gateway.
Businesses that offer free trials must get explicit consent from customers to charge the card after the trial ends. Learn more about Consent Management.
Follow these steps to complete this:
Learn more about Consent Management.
Chargebee allows you to configure two emails to notify your customers about the status of their trial. Enable the email notifications below to comply with the rules.
If you are selling to customers in the EU region, it is recommended that you configure the Subscription Renewal Reminders as well. Navigate to Settings > Configure Chargebee > Email Notifications > Subscription Renewal Reminders to enable this. This email will notify the customer when there are renewals or changes in the subscription.
Customers may want to cancel their subscriptions for various reasons. The cancel subscription option should be prominent and easily accessible. You can allow your customers to cancel or stop their subscription using the self-serve portal.
To do this:
Once you enable this option, your customers will be able to cancel their subscription by logging into the self-serve portal.
A descriptor indicating that the transaction is related to a trial period needs to be configured. This descriptor will be used in the customer's bank statement for the first transaction that involves conversion from trial to paid subscription.
Transaction descriptors can be configured only for gateways that support it. Refer to our Transaction descriptor documentation to know the supported gateways.
To add a descriptor:
When configured, a trial tag will be appended at the end of the descriptor when a transaction due to trial-to-paid plan conversion occurs. If the configured statement descriptor is more than 22 characters, the last few characters will be removed and "- trial" will be appended. To avoid this, it is recommended that you limit your descriptor to 10 to 15 characters.
This tag will not be added if:
The first renewal amount is compensated with credits.
The first invoice goes into dunning and the second invoice is paid before the first invoice. Here, the trial tag will be added only when the first invoice is paid.
The payment for the first invoice is made using offline payment methods.
The invoice amount is collected in advance.
The invoice involves only non-recurring line items (one-time, non-recurring add-on).
The customer changes to a different plan that does not offer a trial before the trial ends.
The first invoice amount (after the trial conversion) is zero.
Pay Now request is initiated for all unpaid invoices.
The first renewal amount is compensated with credits.
The first invoice goes into dunning and the second invoice is paid before the first invoice. Here the trial tag will be added only when the first invoice is paid.
The payment for the first invoice is done using offline payment methods.
The invoice amount is collected in advance.
The invoice involves only non-recurring line items (One-time, Non-recurring Add-on).
The customer changes to a different plan that does not offer a trial before the trial ends.
The first invoice amount (after the trial conversion) is zero.
Pay Now request is initiated for all the unpaid invoices.
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