Question about ARB trial period

[BogdanD]

Hello!

I faced with problem with creating of ARB subscription with trial period. Need to create subscription with 1 week of trial period and month to month payment after that trial. Can I create such subscription with standard mechanism or should I create 2 subscriptions to implement such behavior?

Thanks in advance.

[itdevworks · Accepted solution]

You cannot do what you ask with a single subscription.  However, if your trial period has a cost (i.e. not nothing), then it would probably be better to charge the trial period using AIM and just start the subscription one week later.  If your trial period does not have a cost, then simply set the <startDate> element for ARBCreateSubscriptionRequest for one week later.

When I am doing ARB implementations, even if there is no trial period (or it fits in to the regular subscription interval), I still use AIM to make the first charge.  The advantage of doing this is you get to validate the customer's credit card immediately while they are still on your website (or whatever your application is) and have a chance to correct it if the card is turned down for any reason.  Contrast this with exclusively using ARB, where the first payment is not charged against the card until some time later (even if the subscription starts "today"), and then you are stuck with the added time, expense and customer relations hassle of having to contact the customer to tell them their card was declined and maybe having to disable their account (and re-enable it later if they correct the problem).  Making the first charge with AIM is clearly the way to go.

[BogdanD]

Thank you very much Dave for detailed answer

[dcolumbus]

Okay, so I'm not quite clear on this...

I understand that AIM payments go through almost immediately and the logic behind charging the first month with AIM and then 30 days later create an ARB subscription.

But how does the Trial period work? I'm using Formstack.com where I can create forms at the drop of a hat and they have two options: 1) AIM (one time), 2) ARB with a trial period... and it seems like I can charge a specific amount for that trial period.

What I'd like to setup is $14.99 a month with a $20 dollar activation period. So can I create an ARB subscription for $14.99 and a trial period of 30 days for $20?

[dcolumbus]

For example:

http://tinypic.com/m/bi40i1/4

Does this mean that the customer will be billed $14.99 a month and for the first month it's going to be $34.99? ...because that's exactly what I want.

OR, does this mean that they will be charged $20 for the first 30 days and the $14.99 each month thereafter? If that's the case, would I have to make the trial $34.99?

The result I want is: the first month they are charged $34.99 (14.99 + 20) and then $14.99 every month thereafter.

[stymiee]

If the trial period is only 30 days long then you don't need to use a trial period. The initial $20 payment will cover their first 30 days and then set up their subscription to start 30 days later at the regular price.

[dcolumbus]

Okay, thanks for the reply but that didn't really answer my question. I attached that screenshot so that you could understand what it is that I'm submitting.

I'm not using a custom interface... I'm using formstack.com. According to the screenshot, which of the scenarios I asked about above would apply?

[itdevworks]

The amount charged for the trial period is exclusive of the regular monthly amount.  In other words, the trial period feature was created to support the scenarios where you want to charge less than the normal monthly amount, including charging nothing for the introductury period.  In your case, the supported way (independent of the fact that you are using the formstack.com) to implement what you want would be to first charge the AIM amount for $20, and then create a subscription, starting immediately, for $14.99. 

However, you stated that formstack.com limits you to AIM or ARB, not both at the same time, so the closest you could come would be:

• Amount: $14.99
• Interval Length: 1
• Interval Unit: months
• Start Date: <current-date>
• Total Occurrences: <your call>
• Trial Occurrences: 1
• Trial Amount: $34.99 ($20.00 + $14.99)

I was concerned that it is possible ARB will reject a trial amount greater than the normal amount, but I just tried it on the Test server and it took it fine.

[dcolumbus]

Excellent. Very thorough and very helpful.

I'll test it out.

[uthman]

Hi , 

 I have a different scenario regarding trial period . I searched it on google but I got no satisfactory answer. 

 My question is how can I give last month of the year free for ARB. 

 For instance . I provide web design services to my customers who pays me $xx every month . Now a customer paid me for 11 

 months and I have promised him to give one month free service i.e (he wont be charged for 12th month) . So how can I set the trial period so that it charges nothing 

 for last month. 

 Simply if it possible that instead of giving trial period at the start of ARB , i can set it after 11 months. 

Thanks in Advance.