# Free trial framed as part of the plan, not an add-on: +37% enrollment

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Product page (Ecommerce)
- Elements: Subscriptions & subscribe-and-save, Headlines, product titles & copy
- Test run by: [Optimizely](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/optimizely/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://www.optimizely.com/field-notes/articles/experimentation-use-cases-retail-subscription-page
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/optimizely-subscription-free-trial-built-in/

Presenting a free trial as a built-in part of the subscription plan, rather than as an add-on, lifted subscription enrollment by 37%. Optimizely reported this test for a retail subscription brand it works with, published in its Field Notes use cases. The brand is not named.

## Result

**+37% enrollment**

- Subscription enrollment: +37%, the headline result of the test.
- Incremental revenue: Optimizely credits this change with about $2.7M in extra revenue. How that was calculated is not shared.
- The larger $21M figure on the same page covers roughly 500 campaigns overall, not this test.
- Optimizely says the early win led the brand to roll the change out globally.

## Control

The subscription page offered the free trial as an add-on to the subscription, something extra on top of the plan.

## Variant

The same free trial was framed as a built-in feature of the plan, so the trial came with the subscription by default.

## Why it likely won (our reading)

- An add-on feels like one more decision. A built-in trial removes that step.
- Calling the trial part of the plan makes it feel like included value, not a separate offer to judge.
- A trial that comes with the plan lowers the felt risk of signing up, which is the reason Optimizely gives in its hypothesis.

## Caveats

This is a vendor-reported result with no sample size, test length or confidence level shared, and the brand is anonymous. The date of the test is not stated.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we present the free trial as a built-in part of the subscription plan instead of an add-on, then more visitors will enroll because the trial lowers perceived risk without adding a decision.
- Primary metric: Subscription enrollment rate
- Guardrail: Trial-to-paid conversion
- Guardrail: Cancellations in the first billing cycle
- Guardrail: Revenue per visitor
- Who should test it: Retail and consumer subscription brands that already offer a trial but show it as an optional extra. If you have no trial, or most trial users cancel before paying, this framing may raise sign-ups without raising revenue.

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Credit: Optimizely ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/optimizely-subscription-free-trial-built-in/).
Usage: Free to use, quote and build on, with credit and a link: name the practitioner or organization that ran the test and link to its LiftArchive page. The results belong to the practitioners who ran and shared them; the summaries and commentary are LiftArchive's.