One of the biggest points of friction when signing up for a new SaaS product is being asked for your credit card before you’ve even had a chance to see whether it’s useful.

Until now, CLARIFYProperty worked the same way. You could start a free trial, but you still had to create a Stripe subscription and provide your payment details up front.

When I first implemented subscriptions, requiring a card up front was the most straightforward approach. As more people tried the application, though, it became clear that this wasn’t the experience I wanted to offer. A trial should let you evaluate the software before you’re asked to commit to paying for it.

The new approach

As of today, you can start your free trial without entering any payment details at all.

When you create an account, you’ll receive a fully featured trial period immediately. No credit card. No Stripe checkout. Just sign up and start using the application.

Only when you decide you’d like to continue after the trial do you need to add a payment method and subscribe to one of the paid plans.

It sounds simple…

From a user’s perspective, this is a tiny change.

From the application’s perspective, it required a fairly significant rethink of how subscriptions are modelled.

Previously, “having a Stripe subscription” and “being allowed to use paid features” were effectively the same thing.

Now they’re separate concepts:

  • A user can have an active free trial without any Stripe customer or subscription existing.
  • A paid subscription is only created when the user actually chooses to continue after the trial.
  • Early Access users continue to work exactly as before, without needing any billing at all.

This separation has made the subscription logic much cleaner, with the application explicitly understanding whether access comes from an active trial, a paid subscription, or an Early Access entitlement.

Better for everyone

Removing the credit card requirement should make it much easier for prospective users to explore CLARIFYProperty without feeling like they’re signing up to something they’ll immediately forget to cancel.

It also means fewer abandoned sign-ups and a much more natural onboarding experience.

The billing system is now focused on a simple principle:

Only ask for payment when someone has decided the software is worth paying for.

Sometimes the best features aren’t the ones users notice—they’re the ones that quietly remove a little bit of friction.