---
title: "The trial"
description: "The three day trial: how signup decides whether you are offered it, what it allows, and how it relates to the Free opt-in."
updated: "2026-08-29"
verifiedAgainst:
  - packages/shared/src/trial.ts
  - packages/shared/src/free-grant.ts
  - apps/web/lib/server/acquisition-runtime-control.ts
  - apps/web/lib/server/free-opt-in.ts
  - apps/web/lib/server/workspace-invitation-service.ts
---

<Callout variant="note" title="Two separate things are decided at signup">
  Signup writes two facts onto your account: the **offer** it is assigned, and
  whether that account is **eligible to opt in to Free** instead, on its first
  Project. They are stored separately and they are not the same decision.

  Both come from a runtime setting rather than from anything baked into the
  product, and that setting has been changed more than once. So this page does
  not tell you what a brand new account is offered today. The plan step in your
  own onboarding does, and it is the only place worth trusting for that.

  What does not change is your own account: whatever it was assigned at first
  signup stays assigned. See [the Free grant](/billing/free-grant) for the other
  offer, and [choosing a plan](/onboarding/plan) for the step where the choice
  is actually made.
</Callout>

A trial exists to prove the pipeline works on your own site. It is short and
real rather than long and hedged.

## How long

Three days, started at checkout. A reminder is sent before it ends.

## It runs on the plan you chose

The trial is not a plan of its own. You choose Starter, Growth or Ultra Growth at
the plan step, and that is what you are trialing and what you will be charged
for.

## The allowance

A smaller ceiling applies over the top of your plan for the trial:

| Meter | During the trial |
| --- | --- |
| Posts | 3 |
| Topics | 4 |
| Images | 15 |
| Revisions per post | 1 |
| Competitors | 7 |

The ceiling can never grant more than your plan does. If a plan is smaller than
one of these numbers, the plan wins.

These numbers reset with the billing period once the trial converts, because a
trial is a paid subscription that has not been charged yet. That is the sharpest
difference from the Free grant, whose allowance is a lifetime total and never
resets.

## Taking Free instead

If your account was also marked eligible for the Free opt-in, the plan step
offers both answers to the same question. Taking Free is an alternative to
starting the trial, not something you can add to one you already started.

The opt-in is refused once any of the following is true:

- The trial has already been used, by this account or by the same email or
  payment identity. One introductory offer per person is the rule the check
  enforces, so a started trial is a spent offer.
- The Project already has a plan or an entitlement delivered to it.
- It is not the first Project the account was assigned. Second and later
  Projects are paid from the start.
- You are not the account owner. An admin cannot spend the owner's one-time
  benefit, because the limits behind it are counted against the owner.

<Callout variant="warning" title="Starting the trial closes the Free door">
  There is no path back. Take the trial and the Free opt-in stops being offered
  on that account, permanently. If you are undecided, decide before you check
  out rather than after.
</Callout>

Nothing is lost by declining Free and taking the trial instead, other than the
Free offer itself. See [the Free grant](/billing/free-grant) for what the other
side costs.

## One Project

A trial covers one Project. A second can be created once the workspace is on a
paid subscription.

<Callout variant="note">
  This is a consequence of how metering works rather than a sales tactic. Every
  meter is scoped to a Project while the trial belongs to the workspace's single
  subscription, so a trial spread across Projects would multiply the allowance
  with nothing to notice it.
</Callout>

## Team invitations work during a trial

Checkout writes a real `trialing` subscription for the workspace, and sending an
invitation is gated on the workspace having a subscription in an allowed status.
A trialing workspace has one, so a trial can invite teammates. A Free Project's
workspace has no subscription document at all, so it cannot, and the invite is
refused with a message saying a paid subscription is required.

## When it ends

The subscription begins on the plan you chose, and the plan's full allowance
applies. Nothing you produced during the trial is lost.

## Cancelling during it

You can cancel during the trial from the workspace. See
[cancelling](/billing/cancel).