Tips and Tricks #17: How to Programmatically Manage Trials With Zoho Subscriptions

Tips and Tricks #17: How to Programmatically Manage Trials With Zoho Subscriptions

Offering trial subscriptions has become an integral part in gaining a prospective customer's trust, especially in SaaS based businesses. In this post, we'll be taking a look at how you can take control of this using Zoho Subscriptions.

This article is part of a series of tips and tricks that we post every week. Go ahead and check out last week's post about charging a late fee to your subscribers, in case you missed it.

Trial subscriptions can help boost your sales

Zoho Subscriptions provides two methods through which you can sign users up for a trial--hosted payment pages and via the API.

Hosted payment pages let you sign users up for a trial subscription easily. These pages require users to enter their payment details along with some other basic information.

In case you want to allow your users to sign up for a trial without asking for their payment information upfront, you can go for the API route. This can increase potential sign-ups from users that want to try your product with no strings attached. It also gives them the freedom to provide their payment details only after they're satisfied with your product.

If you have a web application where your customers can sign up for a trial, you can setup Zoho Subscriptions in such a way, where one of the APIs programmatically creates a new trial subscription every time a new user signs up from your website. This enables you to track and manage your trial subscriptions with in-depth reports, email notifications for your subscribers and also allows you to collect your subscribers' payment information via secure hosted pages when they're ready to move to a paid plan.

Here's how to set it up:

We'll be using one of our powerful REST APIs to create subscriptions automatically in Zoho Subscriptions.

When your users sign up for a trial from your web application, you can programmatically call the create subscription API to enter them as a customer in Zoho Subscriptions and create a trial subscription for them with a selected plan automatically.

Once this is done, you can configure email notifications in Zoho Subscriptions to remind your customers about their trial subscription's expiry date and other information.



You can also use Zoho Subscriptions' reports, which can help you gain important business insights. Reports like Subscription Details can be customized to view the details of your trial subscriptions with ease.



For added convenience, our trial-specific default view filters let you quickly view your trial subscriptions right from the Subscriptions list page.



Stay tuned for next week's post, where we'll be taking a look at how you can collect your customer's payment information, extend their trials if needed and move their subscription from the Trial status to the Live status in Zoho Subscriptions.

Cheers,
Varun Steven
The Zoho Subscriptions Team


    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip #4 : Refer and Earn Workflow system for your Subscription Business

      Hello everyone, We've been coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which can be implemented for your business. In continuation to the previous post, this week we will be seeing about how you can implement the Refer and Earn Workflow system to acquire more customers. Why are Referrals important? Customer Acquisition is crucial for any business to sustain itself in a constantly evolving market. It involves persuading new consumers to purchase your products. Customers

    • Tip #2 - Cancellation of Offline Subscriptions based on the Expected Payment Date

      Hello everyone, As you all know, we are coming up with a custom function workflow every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation of this previous blog, this week we will be seeing about Cancellation of Offline Subscriptions based on the Expected Payment Date. Business Scenario: In general, for any business, the customers make payments via online as well as offline. In case of subscription where the automatic collection of charge is enabled (aka online subscription), the customer's

    • Tip #3 : Send SMS Reminders for your Subscription Business

      Hello everyone, As you all know, we are coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation to the previous blog, this week we will be seeing how you can use SMS reminders for your Subscription Business. Using SMS messages for your Subscription Business: While managing your subscription business, more often than not, you need to keep your customers informed about upcoming renewals, payment reminders and cancellations. By keeping them informed in advance, you can

    • Tips And Tricks - Announcement

      Hello everyone, Every business is unique and each of them follows a specific workflow. While managing your customers' subscriptions with Zoho, you might have some needs unique to your business. Custom Functions helps you address such needs. This is a start to a series of posts, where we will be coming up with a custom function workflow every week that addresses specific business scenarios. Watch this space for further updates! Also, if you have any specific business scenario which needs to be addressed,

    • Tip #6 : Accessing external URLs from Zoho Subscriptions

      Hello everyone, We have been sharing a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which you can implement for your subscription business. Last week, we shared a tip about implementing the Approval Workflow system. This week, let's look at how you can access external URLs with the help of Custom Link. Business Scenario: Every business functions differently and has its unique requirements. At times, businesses might want to access other websites or applications by appending specific information

    • Recent Topics

    • Deprecation Notice: OpenAI Assistants API will be shut down on August 26, 2026

      I recieved this email from openAI what does it means for us that are using the integration and what should we do? Earlier this year, we shared our plan to deprecate the Assistants API once the Responses API reached feature parity. With the launch of Conversations,

    • Shall we play a game?

      Presenting the very first game created using ZOHO Creator: Tic-Tac-Toe (or noughts and crosses) I made this to challenge myself and employ some of the new features of ZOHO Creator. I must admit that the code is very literal and not too elegant. There are plans to improve on the machine AI and streamline the code over time. Currently the code makes extensive use of functions for the machine "AI" - there are 12 of these.   The machine AI can be tricked, so to counteract that I made it exceedingly arrogant

    • CRM notes

      I want to be able to add notes to a task that do not necessarily get rolled up into an account or contact.   For example, I tasks to work on a Court Order for John Doe divorce account.  There might be lots of updates (in the form of notes) that employees

    • Confluence export to zoho learn

      Hello Is there any known way to export Confluence spaces to zoho learn ?

    • Limitation in chart of accounts

      There is a limitation of 4000 accounts in chart of accounts  Zoho needs to remove this limit

    • Zoho People API, Inactive users

      Hi, I would like to export using the Zoho People API using Fetch Leave Records API V2 | Zoho People API. However it only pulls active user's leaves. I want all users, active and former employees records.

    • Empty folders are now appearing in the sidebar...

      ...and the folder list is now auto-collapsed by default with no way to change. Neither of these recent updates are useful or user-friendly. ==================== Powered by Haiku https://www.haiku.co.uk ====================

    • Client Script | Update - Client Script Support For Custom Buttons

      Hello everyone! We are excited to announce one of the most requested features - Client Script support for Custom Buttons. This enhancement lets you run custom logic on button actions, giving you greater flexibility and control over your user interactions.

    • Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade

      Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything

    • Create custom rollup summary fields in Zoho CRM

      Hello everyone, In Zoho CRM, rollup summary fields have been essential tools for summarizing data across related records and enabling users to gain quick insights without having to jump across modules. Previously, only predefined summary functions were

    • Monthly Webinar - Getting Started with Zoho LandingPage

      Are you building your first landing page and want a little guidance? Join our monthly Getting Started with Zoho LandingPage webinar and learn how landing pages fit into your marketing strategy, drive lead generation, and improve conversions. Here’s what

    • View all email threads directly from record's History and Interactions

      Greetings all, We've introduced the ability to view complete email thread conversations directly from records' History and Interactions sections, along with email delivery status and sentiment insights on the Interactions page—which makes it easier for

    • Marketing Tip #22: Check website and navigation for broken links

      Do you inspect your online store frequently? If not, here's your reminder to do it now. Broken links frustrate customers and make your store feel unreliable. Whether it’s a missing product page, an outdated menu item, social media accounts, or a broken

    • Online Payment Fees

      We don't take many online credit card payments so the merchant service provider (PayPal) charges us the 2.9% fee for processing the amount. I would like the ability for the fee to be automatically added to the total amount for "ease of payment". We'd

    • push notification to Cliq when user is @mentioned in CRM notes

      push notification to Cliq when user is @mentioned in CRM notes. Currently users that is @mentioned gets an email to be notified. User/s that is @mentioned should get a Cliq notification.

    • How to make entries for restaurant sales in Zoho Books?

      Hello, I'm new to Zoho Books. I need to understand how to record our restaurant sales in Zoho Books. We can't raise invoices for each bill from the daily sales report generated by our POS (duplicated effort). We need a means of entering cumulative sales

    • Integrate with WooCommerce using Wordpress Plugin

      We’re thrilled to announce a powerful update to the Zoho Marketing Automation WordPress plugin with WooCommerce integration! This enhancement enables new possibilities for businesses running online stores using WooCommerce, empowering them to merge seamless

    • How do I sync multiple Google calendars?

      I'm brand new to Zoho and I figured out how to sync my business Google calendar but I would also like to sync my personal Google calendar. How can I do this so that, at the very least, when I have personal engagements like doctor's appointments, I can

    • Domain already exists

      Hi, I tried to add my domain creativecolumnist.com but its showing as Domain already exist. Please release if it has already been associated with Zoho, I am the real owner of that domain.

    • Select forwarding

      For Zoho mail online on PC in web browser: I had forwarding enabled in section "Mail accounts / Forwards", and I also have some filters that send emails from some unwanted senders to Archive. But it doesn't work as intended, it forwards everything (obviously

    • Pay Pal Paylater button

      I am testing the paypal setup to have my customers pay invoices with paypal and credit cards. But it seems to have two options. Paypal and Pay later. I don't want my customers access to pay later feature. How can I turn that part off.. My other integration

    • system not picking my default custom service report template

      Can you tell me why when we create a service report always pick the (standard old) template? Even when I have a custom service report selected as Default.

    • Restrict Appointment Booking to Approved Clients

      Dear Zoho Bookings Support Team, We'd like to propose a feature enhancement for managing appointments within Zoho Bookings. This feature would ensure only pre-approved clients can schedule meetings. Desired Functionality: We propose the introduction of

    • Automate Credit Card Surcharge

      Is there a way to create an automation that will add a 3.0% credit card surcharge to a subscription whenever a customer pays via credit card?

    • I have the item field and Quantity field in the sub form , on the submit of the form if the quantity is grater than inventory means show alert on submit validation only for item type goods ,

      I have the item field and Quantity field in the sub form , on the submit of the form if the quantity is grater than inventory means show alert on submit validation . Stock Check Validation only for item type goods , not for item type service . For the

    • Disappearance of all articles in the knowledge base

      Hi there! It seems like all of our articles have disappeared from the knowledge base: However, the names still appear in the "sort articles" section:

    • Logic for sending to a non-primary email address

      Hi, I have a scenario where contacts are able to sign up for emails with 2 different email addresses (example: work, personal). I've mapped both to Campaigns from Zoho CRM, but when I go to target an email only the primary email addresses are pulling in. How can I update this to look at both of the email addresses - or specifically the secondary email address in Campaigns? Thanks, Jenny

    • Add "Reset MFA" Option for Zoho Creator Client Portal Users

      Hello Zoho Creator Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an important enhancement related to Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for client portal users in Zoho Creator. Currently, Creator allows us to enforce MFA for portal users,

    • Tables for Europe Datacenter customers?

      It's been over a year now for the launch of Zoho Tables - and still not available für EU DC customers. When will it be available?

    • NOTAS INVISIBLES

      Siempre que abro mis notas salen invisibles, muchas no resaltan las *negritas* en la vista previa hasta que te metes en ellas y modificas algo. Pero omg con el equipo de Zoho. Les dije que las usaba mucho precisamente por la VISTA PREVIA y encontrar las

    • Does Zoho has chatroom/chatbot url feature?

      Hi Zoho community! I’m looking for a quick "Yes/No" answer for my dev team regarding Zoho’s capabilities. We currently use Zoho Desk for our Service Team and Zoho CRM for our Marketing Team to bring both functions under one platform. Our question: Does

    • One Support Email Managed By Multiple Departments

      Hello, We use one support email (support@company.com). Incoming emails come to the "Support Department" and based on what the customer is asking, we route that ticket to different departments (billing, technical support, etc.). When users in these different

    • Is it Possible to Modify Standard Report Urls

      Is there a way to permanently modify standard report Urls? Use case: Suppose I have a Products report. Showing list as timeline, calendar, or kanban doesn't make sense. Want to hide that from users by adding #Report:Products?zc_ShowAs=false&zc_Print=false

    • Updated font library: New font styles and custom font options in Zoho Sheet

      Zoho Sheet's font library now supports 500+ font styles in 60+ languages! The updated font library is stacked with new font styles, and some of the previously available font styles have been replaced with equivalent options. There are two ways you can

    • scope for phonebridge in CRM and phonebridge API documentation

      Hi I cannot find the scope to be used for phonebridge in CRM API V2 calls. I am getting OAUTH_SCOPE_MISMATCH for scope group ZohoCRM.modules.ALL,ZohoCRM.setttings.ALL Also I am not able to locate the documentation for the same, All I have is phonebridge

    • Job Alerts for Candidates

      hi All, I have 2 questions relating to sharing job details with candidates. 1. is there a way to notify candidates that meet certain criteria of current jobs available? eg. I run a candidate search, and identify 50 candidates that might be suitable. Can

    • Zoho Wiki or new Zoho Learn

      We are currently evaluating if we should move off confluence. At present in Confluence we have multiple levels within our documentation but with learn it looks like you can only have Space       - Manual             - Chapter Is it possible to have levels below Chapter? Also the same question for the existing wiki, can I have more sub-levels?

    • Fix image at bottom of a page fot automatic proposal creation

      I'm working on a proposal document to automate our proposal creation process. So far it works fine, but I experience some problems with an image I want to have fixed at the bottom of the page AND above the footer. This section of the document consists

    • Can't scroll the page down unless I refresh the page

      Hello, This issue has been going on with me and a lot of other users in my organization, we can't scroll down! the scrolling side bar doesn't appear and scrolling down through mouse or keyboard keys doesn't work, it seems that the page just ends in the

    • Price List

      II want to restrict the items to display in sales, quote, etc for which custom rates are added in price list. How I can do the same in Zoho books

    • Next Page