I would like to offer a free trial access period for all payment levels. Rather like Wild Apricot does, but not necessarily for 30 days. Paypal offer this delayed action payment and it works very well. You can choose how long the free trial period is, and then the payment automatically kicks in.

 Asking people for money upfront puts a lot of people off.

It may be because I explained the idea poorly.

The idea is to offer a delayed action free trial along the lines of:

"Try membership for 14 days. If, during that time you decide you don't wish to become a full member, simply cancel your order and pay nothing. If you do decide to continue, you will pay just XXXX a year."

If we can choose the length of the free trial, say, 7 days, 14 days or 30 days that would suit most kinds of membership websites.

A delayed action free trial is a proven way to increase the number of sign-ups a website will achieve. Memberships shoot up! Most people want to try something out before they buy.

Thanks,

Peter

Wazing - I can't provide a link to Paypal because that page comes up when I access my account. You must have a merchant account, then you click on 'create button' and it takes you through the set-up procedure. One of the options is for a delayed action payment, and you can chose the length of the delay on the menu.

Hope that helps. 

I use it on my websites to let visitors browse the paid-for members section, but make a commitment to pay if they like the material I offer and don't cancel. Otherwise, without that commitment, very few would pay, if any.

Just weighing in here on this topic.

I agree, it would be very helpful to have the ability to set up a free or very low cost short term trial membership. In my case, for example, I'd like to offer a 7 day trial for $9.99 to give potential members access to our video instructional materials.

-Sheryl

Tiffany,

This sounds like a well-thought workaround, keep us posted on how it works for you.

FYI - in next version 4.3 (~end of November 2011) archived members will be able to apply and their profile would automatically be restored.