Free Trial with Premium Plans
Plans
Basic, Pro, Premium etc. all with a stipulated trial period.
Scenario
Tim signs up for your product and by default you put him on a free trial (limited). When the trial period is about to expire, you send him an email asking him to pick a plan. After he chooses the plan, you ask him to key in his card information. If he doesn’t pick a plan, his account will be disabled. Shopify would be a great example of this model.
Implementation
Step 1: User Signup
Have a simple sign up form which collects user’s basic information (Name, Email, etc.).
Step 2: Create Plans
Set up plans that correspond to your Pricing Structure.
curl https://{site}.chargebee.com/api/v1/plans \
-u {site_api_key}: \
-d id="pro" \
-d name="Pro" \
-d invoice_name="Pro Plan" \
-d price="5000"
Step 3: Create a Subscription
After a customer signs up, create a subscription in Chargebee (Creating a subscription automatically creates a customer in Chargebee).
curl https://{site}.chargebee.com/api/v1/subscriptions \
-u {site_api_key}: \
-d customer[email]="[email protected]" \
-d customer[first_name]="John" \
-d customer[last_name]="Doe" \
-d customer[phone]="+1-949-999-9999" \
-d plan_id="premium" \
-d billing_address[first_name]="John" \
-d billing_address[last_name]="Doe" \
-d billing_address[line1]="PO Box 9999" \
-d billing_address[city]="Walnut" \
-d billing_address[state]="California" \
-d billing_address[zip]="91789" \
-d billing_address[country]="US"
Step 4: Watch out for when the trial ends
Have a webhook configured which listens to the subscription_trial_ending event. With the event response as a trigger, send automatic email reminders to your customers asking them to pick a plan and update their payment method information.
P.S. You could also make this information appear as a notification inside your app using the webhook as a trigger.
curl https://{site}.chargebee.com/api/v1/subscriptions/8avVGOkx8U1MX \
-u {site_api_key}:
Step 5: Cancel Account or Collect Card Information
After the notification is sent:
If customers do not pick a plan or cancel your account, Cancel the account using the Cancel a Subscription API.
curl https://{site}.chargebee.com/api/v1/subscriptions/8avVGOkx8U1MX/cancel \ -X POST \ -u {site_api_key}:If customers update their payment information and pick a plan, update the plan and payment information using the Update a Subscription API.
curl https://{site}.chargebee.com/api/v1/subscriptions/8avVGOkx8U1MX \ -u {site_api_key}: \ -d plan_id="premium" \ -d billing_address[first_name]="John" \ -d billing_address[last_name]="Doe" \ -d billing_address[line1]="PO Box 9999" \ -d billing_address[city]="Walnut" \ -d billing_address[state]="California" \ -d billing_address[zip]="91789" \ -d billing_address[country]="US"If you use Chargebee’s Hosted Pages + API, make use of the Checkout Existing Subscription API to collect information and pass it on to Chargebee.