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We're developing a system whereby the user will be sign-up and have a 3 month trial without entering card details. Once the trial period is up they get sent an e-mail asking them to come back and register card details in order to setup a recurring payment in order to continue accessing the site.

Is it possible to configure recurring payments with Braintree such that we don't provide a card for the trial period and then configure one upon notification that it has expired?

Thanks!

Dean Ward
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1 Answers1

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I work at Braintree. If you want more information than you can easily get on Stack Overflow, please reach out to our support team.

Braintree subscriptions require a credit card to be created. That way, the transition from trial period to billing doesn't require any action by the customer or merchant. Since our core service is billing credit cards, that's what subscriptions are designed to do.

In your case, it sounds like you can create a subscription in your application, and only link it to a Braintree subscription if / when credit card details are entered. You'll need to handle tracking the three month time limit yourself.

agf
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  • Thanks, that's the route we were going to go, just wanted to confirm before we started coding! – Dean Ward May 21 '13 at 16:26
  • @DeanWard Cool. Let us know if we can help you with anything else. – agf May 21 '13 at 18:00
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    Just my 2c: this is my main issue with all subscription billing services so far, and I'm surprised nobody implements it. I want to use them to take away this hassle, but forced to implement a parallel system of tracking trials myself, so there is little point in "free trial" functionality provided by these services. It's a major nuisance. – Alex B Jul 16 '15 at 04:05
  • Same issue here: I feel more like I am designing and implementing subscription/trial system on my own... – user606521 Jul 16 '15 at 10:44
  • @AlexB I hear what you're saying, but you shouldn't be using Braintree as your general system of record. It's specifically for payments, so all of its features are based around having a payment method to charge. I'll pass the feedback along to the team. – agf Jul 16 '15 at 14:34
  • @user606521 See my previous comment. – agf Jul 16 '15 at 14:35
  • I understand but anyway managing CCs, subscriptions and trials is rather complicated. Also there is an "issue" that when user subscribes to plan with trial and then cancels subscription and subscribes again then full trial period starts again. So another thing I have to keep track on my side. Also changing plan is not supported out of the box (monthly -> yearly). And automatic refunds (based on some configuration) would be nice. I know that whole system is powerful and flexible but I feel like there could be another service on top of braintree that would make recurring billing easier... – user606521 Jul 16 '15 at 15:29
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    @user606521 There are; see https://www.braintreepayments.com/partners, specifically Recurly and Chargify. – agf Jul 16 '15 at 15:32
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    @agf yeah, but it's more $$$ :( – user606521 Jul 16 '15 at 16:25
  • @agf You should probably consider doing exactly that, "a general system of records", so all billing logic is in one place. Right now I am implementing the duplicate free-trial logic with Recurly, and it's not pretty. I'd rather focus on the product than trying to replicate service functionality I can't use. – Alex B Jul 24 '15 at 02:13
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    Stripe does not require a credit card for customers on a trial period. In Stripe's case, the billing "fails" if no credit card is entered by the end of the trial period. I use this in a production app. http://aspiringwebdev.com/using-stripe-for-gift-certificates-and-gift-subscriptions/ – user01380121 Aug 07 '15 at 21:24