Authorize the card at signup. Capture when the trial ends. An open-source primitive you can drop in today — or self-host free. No dashboard hype, no take-rate surprise, just the boring payments infrastructure done right.
No credit card required. Self-host is free forever.
// On signup — from your server
await fetch("https://trial2pay.com/api/v1/trials", {
method: "POST",
headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${API_KEY}` },
body: JSON.stringify({
trial_config_id: "cfg_pro_7d",
customer_email: "alex@acme.dev",
}),
});
// → 201 Created
// {
// "trial_id": "tr_01hr...",
// "checkout_url": "https://trial2pay.com/c/tr_01hr...",
// "capture_at": "2026-04-24T17:00:00Z"
// }The problem
SaaS trials convert at 12–18% on average. Not because the product is bad — because signing up costs nothing, so nothing is on the line. By the time the trial ends, the user has already moved on.
A card held at signup changes the mental model: only committed users proceed, conversion compounds, and payment is automatic the moment the trial expires. The catch? Building it yourself means wiring up PaymentIntents, capture scheduling, webhooks, idempotency, retry logic, audit logs, and PCI scope considerations.
trial2pay is that pipeline, already built and boring.
Source: ProfitWell / Paddle — 2023 aggregated SaaS trial data. Range varies by price point; lower ACVs (<$20) see smaller lift.
How it works
You write three API calls. We handle the PaymentIntent lifecycle, capture scheduling, webhook retries, idempotency, and the full audit trail.
Your signup calls POST /api/v1/trials. We create a PaymentIntent with capture_method: 'manual'. The card is validated and funds are held.
await trial2pay.trials.create({
trial_config_id: "cfg_pro_7d",
customer_email: user.email,
});
// → status: "authorized"Funds remain authorized for up to 7 days (Stripe's hard limit). Customer uses your product. You handle usage, we handle the hold.
// Nothing on your side. // Stripe keeps the auth live. // You get webhook: trial.authorized
pg_cron triggers capture at trial end. Cancel to void. Every state change is HMAC-signed, retried on failure, logged.
// Auto-capture at trial_ends_at // → webhook: trial.captured // Or refund before: await trial2pay.trials.cancel(id);
Why open source matters for payments
Closed payment SaaS ask you to trust a growth dashboard with the most sensitive part of your business. trial2pay is the opposite: a thin, auditable layer on top of Stripe — so the only thing between you and your customer's bank is Stripe itself.
Integrations
Three embedded SDKs keep the card form on your domain. One hosted redirect handles zero-JS stacks. All four flow through the same server pipeline, so you can change frontends without touching anything else.
Pricing
No MRR bands. No take rate on the plan amount. No surprise overages. $0.50 the moment a trial converts — nothing the moment it doesn't.
MIT licensed. Fork it, run it.
We run the infra. You write three API calls.
FAQ
It enters Stripe's iframe directly via Stripe Elements — trial2pay never sees the raw card number. Your server receives only a `pm_...` token and Stripe holds the card. PCI scope stays at SAQ-A (the lowest bucket) because we never transit or store card data.
Customer → Stripe → your Stripe balance. trial2pay is never a payee. We use your restricted Stripe key to orchestrate the PaymentIntent, but funds settle to your account, under your Stripe business profile.
Yes. Every Stripe API call hits `stripe_audit_log` with endpoint, request ID, duration, and response status. Per-trial view is on the trial detail page. Full-index viewer is on the roadmap; the data is there today via SQL.
New trials stop authorizing until we recover. Existing authorizations are already in Stripe — they capture on schedule even if our scheduler is down (Stripe retries). You can also self-host in parallel and failover by swapping a DNS record. No vendor lock-in, ever.
You can. It's a good week of work: PaymentIntent with `capture_method: manual`, Vault or KMS for keys, pg_cron or a queue for capture, HMAC on outbound webhooks, exponential backoff, idempotency keys, plus the audit log. trial2pay is that week, already debugged and MIT-licensed — so you can crib whatever you want.
No. $0.50 is charged only on `trial.captured` — the moment money actually moves into your Stripe balance. Auth failures, voluntary cancels, expired holds, and refunds within the same billing period are not billable.
Ship your trial flow today
10 minutes to your first authorized trial. Free self-host for the skeptical. $0.50 per capture if you'd rather we ran the pipeline.