How to Create Introductory Offers

Use Case: Attracting new subscribers

This tutorial provides a step-by-step guide on how to create an introductory subscription offer, where a subscriber gets a special price for an initial period before automatically transitioning to regular subscription pricing.

Benefits

Introductory subscription offers help D2C services accelerate customer acquisition by lowering the initial cost barrier and making it easier for new users to start paying. They create a low-risk, high-value first step that boosts conversion from site visitors or app users into active subscribers.

When executed well, intro offers drive a clear uplift in paid conversion, helping more customers transition quickly into full-price plans. This, in turn, expands the active subscriber base, strengthens recurring revenue, and increases overall lifetime value.

Example Scenario

You want to present new subscribers with a special offer that grants access to your content under special conditions for the first non-standard period of time - such as 6 months at the price of just 3 months. Once this initial discounted period ends, the subscription should switch to a regular monthly billing with a standard price.

Solution Overview

In order to achieve the behavior outlined in the example scenario, you will need to have two offers. Let's take the following assumptions:

• The target offer (regular offer): a monthly recurring subscription with a price of 12$ per month
• The promotional offer (introductory offer): it will give access for 6 months for the price of 3 (3 * 12$ = 36$)

Once the target (regular) offer has been created with Cleeng, you need to create a promotional (introductory) 6-month offer, and configure the downgrade path from this offer to the target offer.

You need to periodically run a script that will list subscriptions to the promotional (introductory) offer and schedule a deferred switch to the target (regular) offer.

At the end of the billing cycle users will be switched to a regular monthly offer and charged the normal price without a need to take any action.

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Note:

The proposed solution outlines how to implement introductory offers using automated scripts. It includes several prerequisites, such as using the deferred offer change algorithm and configuring two distinct offers. It also introduces reporting considerations, as the offer switch will surface as a downgrade event.

Prerequisites

Make sure the following prerequisites are in place:

• You have access to a Cleeng sandbox account for testing purposes.
• You have created a target offer (regular monthly subscription offer) in the Cleeng platform

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Offer Configuration

Step 1: Create promotional offer

Create a promotional subscription offer in the Cleeng Dashboard. This offer will have the special introductory price and duration (e.g., $36 for the first 6 months).

Refer to the subscription offer setup guide for detailed instructions.

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Note

After a subscriber purchases a promotional (introductory) offer, they will see its price and the renewal date in the My Account component. The subscriber will see the price of the regular offer only after the switch is scheduled. The delay in showing the price of the regular offer depends on the frequency of the script being run. If a webhook alternative is used, it is near-real time.

Step 2: Configure subscription switch

Configure a "downgrade" path from the promotional offer to the target (regular) offer. This tells the Cleeng platform that subscribers on the promotional offer can be switched to the target offer.

Follow the instructions in the Dashboard Configuration of subscription switches.

Step 3: Set switch algorithm to "deferred"

For the subscription switch to happen at the end of the billing cycle, you must set the downgrade algorithm to deferred. This ensures that subscribers get the full value of their promotional period before being switched.

You can find this setting in the "Offer switch settings" section of the Cleeng dashboard. See Subscription Switch Algorithms for more details.

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Note

If you are using Cleeng transactional emails, please note that there are no dedicated email notifications for the change from a promotional (introductory) subscription offer to a regular one. So the user will receive a standard subscription switch notification.

2. Script Flow

Make sure you have created a job that will periodically run a script.

The script lists active subscriptions to the promotional (introductory) offer and schedules a switch to the target (regular) offer.

Step 1: List subscriptions to promotional offer

List all the subscriptions to the promotional offerId using the List Subscriptions API endpoint: GET /3.1/subscriptions

Input parameters:

• offerId of the promotional offer should be passed as an input parameter for the request

Step 2: Schedule a switch

For each subscription where status is active and the pendingSwitchId is null the script should send a request to schedule a switch using the Switch Subscription API endpoint: POST /3.1/subscription_switches

Input parameters:

• customerId will come from the step 1 request response for each active subscription with no switch scheduled
• fromOfferId will be the promotional offer ID
• toOfferId will be the target offer ID
• switchDirection should be downgrade

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Note:

Webhook notification subscriptionCreated can be alternatively used as a trigger for sending the request from step 2 and scheduling the switch for each new subscription to the promotional offer individually in near real time. However, there’s a risk that some webhooks may not be delivered so if that approach is used we still recommend running the script to capture the potential gaps.

Testing

1. Purchase the promotional offer on your sandbox environment (you can use daily subscriptions in the sandbox environment only to test recurring payments).
2. Run your script to schedule the subscription switch.
3. Verify that the switch has been scheduled (check the pendingSwitchId in the response from the Get a subscription API endpoint.
4. Wait for the end of the promotional period and confirm that the subscription is automatically switched to the target (regular) offer.

Pro Tips

• Test your implementation on sandbox prior to production release.
• Upon purchase of the promotional offer, subscribers should be informed about the fact that after the promotional period they will be switched to a regular billing schedule and price.
• To prevent potential misuse, consider how your implementation handles subscription cancellations and subsequent attempts to repurchase the same introductory offer.
• It should not be possible to use additional discounts like coupon codes with the promotional offer. You should make sure that any promotional campaign that is active on Cleeng platform is not applicable to the promotional offers. This can be done by setting restriction to specific offer IDs in the campaign setup.