Trial End Action in Zoho Billing is the automated response that triggers when a subscription’s trial period expires. It defines whether the subscription automatically converts to a paid plan, is cancelled, or moves to a pending state waiting for explicit customer confirmation. Configuring the right trial end action is critical for managing trial-to-paid conversion seamlessly without manual follow-up.
The main options are: Convert to paid — the subscription charges the stored payment method automatically at trial end; Cancel — the subscription is terminated and the customer loses access; Convert to free plan — the customer is moved to a limited free tier without payment; and Notify and wait — the system sends a notification to the customer and admin and holds the subscription in a pending state until action is taken. The right choice depends on your pricing model and acquisition strategy.
Zoho Billing can be configured to send automated trial expiry reminders at defined intervals before the trial end date, such as 7 days, 3 days, and 1 day before expiry. These reminders prompt customers to add or confirm their payment details before the trial end action triggers, improving conversion rates and reducing the number of trial-end cancellations caused by friction in the payment process.
Yes. Trial end actions are configured at the plan level in Zoho Billing, so you can set different behaviours for different plans. A free product trial might automatically move customers to a free tier, while a premium product trial might require explicit payment confirmation before converting. This flexibility allows you to tailor the trial-to-paid experience for each product you offer.
If the trial end action is set to convert to paid and the payment charge fails, Zoho Billing’s dunning process activates. The system retries the payment according to the configured dunning profile, sends failure notifications to the customer, and ultimately takes the configured dunning end action (suspend or cancel) if all retries are exhausted without a successful payment.
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