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Automatic and Manual Renewal
Whether a customer renews automatically or by hand depends on the price they chose, not on the product:
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With a Recurring price, Paddle charges the customer again at the end of each billing cycle. Each charge arrives as a new transaction and creates the next Access Subscription. If a charge fails, Paddle retries it for a while; access ends when the last one paid for does. Customers cancel, or change their payment method, in Paddle's customer portal, which PaddleSubs links to from their account pages.
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With a one-time price, nothing is charged again. PaddleSubs emails the customer before their access runs out, with a link to buy again, and once more shortly after it has ended. See PaddleSubs - Expiry reminders(task).
On the product page, PaddleSubs shows recurring prices under Automatic renewal and one-time prices under Manual renewal, so customers can see the difference before they choose.
Trials and Introductory Prices
A recurring price can start with a trial: a Trial Period before Paddle charges the Base Price. Without a Trial Price the trial is free; with one, the customer pays that price for the trial. A trial as long as the billing cycle makes an introductory price: a yearly price of 100.00 with a one-year trial at 50.00 costs 50.00 for the first year and 100.00 every year after.
Paddle gives the trial to every new Paddle subscription of the price. The purchase creates an Access Subscription for the trial period, and each renewal after it one for a billing cycle, as usual. The product page shows the price charged after the trial, and tells customers about the trial under it (“First 14 days free”, “First year at $50.00”); Paddle's checkout shows what is charged now and later.
To set one up, edit the price, choose Recurring, and fill in Trial Period and, for a paid trial, Trial Price. To check it, open the product page: the price's card names the trial.
A trial's checkout and renewal have not been checked in the sandbox yet (AGENTS.md, "Needs the sandbox", item 4). Paddle's discounts don't apply to a trial's price; they start with the first full billing cycle. Whether that is so for PaddleSubs' automatic discounts is part of the check.