A trial extension is a retention offer that gives a customer more free time on their trial instead of letting them cancel. When someone who is still on a free trial reaches your cancel flow, churn.io can offer to push their trial end date further out — so they have more room to explore your product before they ever pay. This article covers when a trial extension makes sense, how to add one to a flow, and the settings you can choose.
When to use a trial extension
A trial extension is designed for customers who are currently on a free trial. It is most useful when someone hasn't had enough time to see your product's value yet — more trial days can turn an early cancel into an activated, paying customer.
⚠️ Trial-only offer
This offer only applies to customers who are still on a free trial. For customers who are already paying, use a Discount, Pause, or Free month offer instead.
Adding a trial extension to a flow
You add offers while editing a cancel flow, in the offers step. You can place a trial extension among your Default offers (shown to everyone who reaches the offer step) or as a Survey offer tied to a specific cancellation reason.
Step-by-step
Open the flow you want to edit and go to the offers step.
Choose where the offer should appear: the Default offers tab, or the Survey offers tab to attach it to a particular reason.
Click Add offer, then pick Trial extension from the offer types.
Open the new offer card and set its Headline and Subtext — this is the message your customer sees. If you leave the headline blank, the offer's default label is shown.
Choose a Trial mode and the extension length (see the settings below).
Save the flow. When you're ready, take the flow live so the offer reaches your customers.
💡 Order matters
Default offers are shown in the order you arrange them. If a customer declines the first offer, they're shown the next one — so you can place a trial extension before or after other offers depending on what you want to lead with.
Trial extension settings
When you open a trial extension offer, you first choose a Trial mode, which decides how the extension length is determined.
Fixed duration
You decide the length and every eligible customer gets the same extension. Pick one of the presets — 7 days, 14 days, or 30 days — or choose Custom and enter any number of days (up to 365).
Customer chooses
The customer picks how many extra days they want, within a range you set. Use the From and to controls to set the minimum and maximum number of days, then choose a Selection style — Pills (tappable buttons) or Dropdown — for how the choices are presented.
Customer picks date
The customer chooses a specific date for their trial to end, any time up to a Maximum days ahead limit that you set. This is handy when customers want their trial to line up with a particular moment, like the start of a new month or a project kickoff.
What happens when a customer accepts
When a customer accepts a trial extension, churn.io updates their subscription so the trial end date moves to the new date — either the fixed length you set, the duration the customer chose, or the exact date they picked. The session is recorded as saved, and the accepted offer appears in your dashboard analytics so you can see how well your trial extensions are performing.
⚠️ Connect your billing platform first
For a trial extension to actually update the customer's subscription, your billing platform must be connected to churn.io. Without a connected integration, the offer can't be applied at the moment a customer accepts it.