54% of Consumers Keep Their Retail Subscriptions Going After Their Free Trial Ends

Free trials are and always have been key to converting new subscribers to retail subscriptions. In fact, 80% of retail subscribers who subscribed after the pandemic — 35 million people — say they first used at least one of the subscriptions they have acquired since March 2020 via free trial, according to the “Subscription Commerce Conversion Index,” a PYMNTS and sticky.io collaboration based on a survey of 2,424 U.S. consumers.

Get the report: Subscription Commerce Conversion Index: The Exclusive Access Effect Edition

The share of retail subscribers who first acquired at least one of their subscriptions by using a free trial has been steadily increasing since Q1 2021. The percentage has increased from 65% in Q1, to 69% in Q2, to 73% in Q3 to 80% in Q4.

At the end of their free trial, fewer subscribers report canceling their subscriptions than we have ever measured, and more than ever are keeping them after their free trials run their course.

In Q4 2021, only 5.8% of subscribers who have used free trials say they canceled after finishing those trials. The share who keep their subscriptions after their free trials end now clocks in at 54%, meaning that 19 million consumers with active subscriptions first received them by signing up for a free trial.

That is not to say that free trials are a cure-all solution for converting more customers. A certain portion of subscribers abuse their free trials by extending them past their due dates. This is done typically by canceling their subscription and then re-signing under a different name, giving these free-trial abusers more access to the retail subscriptions they should be paying for. Twenty-six percent of subscribers currently are using free trials they signed up for using different accounts.