Free and complimentary access

There are several reasons you might want to give someone access to a paid Plan without charging them: a prospect evaluating your product, an existing customer who needs a few complimentary months, an employee who needs paid production Features, and more.

Clerk Billing has three ways to handle these cases:

• A free trial: a time-boxed period that can convert to paid automatically when it ends, as long as a payment method is on file and the customer doesn't cancel
• A 100% Discount: keep the customer on their normal price, but charge $0 for one or more billing cycles
• A $0 complimentary custom price: create a non-public $0 price and transition the Subscription onto it

Free trial

Use a free trial when someone is evaluating the product and, with a payment method on file, should automatically move to a paid Subscription afterward. Trials are configured on a Plan, shown in checkout flows like <PricingTable />, and only available to users who have never paid and never used a free trial.

Use a trial when you want:

• A fixed number of free days, then an automatic charge (if a payment method is on file and the customer doesn't cancel)
• Built-in trial-ending emails and the subscriptionItem.freeTrialEnding webhook
• The customer to end up on the Plan's normal catalog price without a manual transition when the trial converts

See Free trials to enable trials, require (or not require) a payment method, and extend an active trial.

100% Discount

Use a 100% Discount when the customer should stay on their normal price, but you don't want to charge them for a while. Create a percentage Discount set to 100 for the billing periods you care about, set a duration in billing cycles (or Forever), and apply it manually to the Subscription Item.

A 100% Discount works well when you want:

• Temporary complimentary months for someone already on a paid Plan
• The commercial price to remain the Subscription's price (statements show a $0 charge after the Discount)
• An easy return to full price when the Discount's cycles are exhausted, without a second price transition

$0 complimentary custom price

Use a $0 complimentary custom price when someone should have paid Plan Features without putting them on your public commercial price. Common cases include employees, internal accounts, and other non-public comps.

Create the $0 price while updating a Subscription Item (Create new price), set monthly and/or annual amounts to $0, then complete the price transition. That price is for the customers you move onto it. It is not a public catalog price shown on your Pricing Table.

A complimentary price works well when you want:

• Ongoing Feature access in production for internal users
• Clear separation between commercial subscribers and complimentary accounts
• To avoid a Discount that must be remembered, renewed, or re-applied after Plan changes

Compare the options

All three give free access to paid Features. They differ in how the free access ends, whether the customer keeps your commercial price, and who can start it: