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Offer free trials

Free trials let merchants test your app before committing to a paid plan. You can configure free trial periods when creating any subscription plan, and extend trials for individual merchants through your Partner Dashboard.

Anchor to Configure free trialsConfigure free trials

When creating or editing a plan, you can specify the number of free trial days:

  1. From your Partner Dashboard, click Apps > All Apps and click the name of the app you want to update pricing for.
  2. Click Distribution.
  3. Beside Shopify App Store listing, click Manage listing.
  4. Under Published languages, click Edit for the locale you want to update.
  5. Under Pricing content, click Manage to open the Pricing index page.
  6. Click on an existing plan or create a new one.
  7. Under Free trial duration, enter the number of days you want to offer.
  8. Click Save.

Anchor to Trial prorationTrial proration

Shopify App Pricing tracks trial days over a 180-day period to prevent users from repeatedly reinstalling apps to exploit free trial periods.

For example, if a merchant uses 12 out of 15 trial days on a Pro Plan, uninstalls, then reinstalls the app 90 days later, they'll still have 3 trial days left for the Pro Plan.

If you update your trial periods, then previously consumed trial days are subtracted from the new totals.

Anchor to Extend a trial periodExtend a trial period

You can extend trial periods for individual merchants through your Partner Dashboard. Staff members need the Manage credits and refunds permission to manage trial extensions.

  1. From your partner dashboard, search for the name of the merchant whose trial you want to extend. Click the merchant name in the Store column of the search results.
  2. Beside Trial extension, click Create.
  3. Under App, search for your app by name and select it.
  4. Under Extra trial days, enter the number of days to extend the merchant's trial.
  5. Click Create.
  6. In the confirmation dialog, click Apply to confirm the trial extension.

Shopify sends an email to the merchant on your behalf confirming the change. The merchant doesn't need to re-subscribe to the plan. The extension is applied to their subscription automatically.

Anchor to DiscountsDiscounts

In addition to trial extensions, you can issue discounts to merchants:

  1. From your partner dashboard, search for the name of the merchant you want to offer a discount. Click the merchant name in the Store column of the search results.
  2. Beside Discount, click Create.
  3. Under App, search for your app by name and select it.
  4. Select the type, value, and duration of the discount.
  5. Click Create.
  6. In the confirmation dialog, click Apply to confirm the discount.

The discount is applied to their subscription automatically, starting on the next billing cycle.

Anchor to Test plans on dev storesTest plans on dev stores

On a dev store in the same Partner organization as your app, you can select any available App Pricing plan at no charge. You can also mark individual plans as free to test so that other Partners can test them on their dev stores.

Learn more about testing plans on dev stores, including how Shopify represents no-charge subscriptions.

Anchor to Next stepsNext steps

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