Trials

What the customer experiences

	Regular checkout	Trial checkout
Payment	Charged immediately	Payment method saved, no immediate charge
Primary action	Pay	Start free trial
After checkout	Subscription becomes active	Subscription becomes `trialing`

The trial starts after payment-method setup succeeds. If the card requires 3D Secure, the customer completes verification before the trial begins.

How it works

Commet resolves an Offer with a free_trial phase.
Checkout saves the payment method without charging it.
The subscription becomes trialing and records trialEndsAt.
At the end, Commet charges the selected price's current catalog value.
The next accepted Offer phase starts, if one exists.

The accepted Offer phases are immutable, but the selected catalog price is not. A price change during the trial changes the first paid charge.

Reusable and customer-specific trials

Use a catalog Offer when the trial should have a reusable name and distribution strategy. It can be attached to a base price as introductory or passed directly with offerId.

Use customTrialDays for terms exclusive to one subscription. Commet records those accepted terms as a custom Offer Application. Use skipTrial: true to bypass automatic introductory selection.

During the trial

Behavior	During trial
Plan features	Available
Overage	Blocked at included limits
Credit, balance, and add-on purchases	Available after checkout captures the payment method
Metered usage reset	Monthly on the billing day for trials longer than a month
Included balance and credits	Granted once when the trial starts

Billing fundamentals

Subscriptions

Consumption and pricing

Payments

What the customer experiences

How it works

Reusable and customer-specific trials

During the trial

​What the customer experiences

​How it works

​Reusable and customer-specific trials

​During the trial

What the customer experiences

How it works

Reusable and customer-specific trials

During the trial