Should "PROFILESTARTDATE" date be set at the end or at beginning of free trial?

[bodyspartan]

From documentation:

CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile API Operation (NVP)

https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/api/merchant/CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile_API_Operation_...

TLDR:

Should "PROFILESTARTDATE" date be set at the beginning of free trial or at the end?

Long version:

We are creating subscriptions on our website with 14 days free trial throught NVP api. Currently when customer purchases we set trial to be 14 days and profile start date to be 14 days in the future, but customers are not charged after 14 days.

Does paypal start trial period from the "PROFILESTARTDATE", then counts down the trial and after trial is finished automatically starts billing?

[MTS_Ciaran]

Yes, the profilestartdate should be at the beginning of the free trial. 

[bodyspartan]

Thank you, this is correct!

[angelleye · Accepted solution]

Actually, if you are wanting to do a FREE trial period then you would leave the trial parameters out of the request altogether, and simply set the start date to the date at the end of the trial.  This would create the profile with an active status right away, but no billing would begin until that start date.

If you are including a discounted trial, then you would use the trial parameters and set amounts accordingly, and in this case the profile start date should be at the beginning of the whole thing.

Unless things have changed since I last played with it, including the actual trial parameters with an amount of 0.00 will return an error.

[bodyspartan]

This seems to be the way most people reccomend when searching for this problem. Never with an explanation why is it preferd over trial with 0 ammount. Now I understand, thank you.

We ran our own tests and from this, trial with 0 ammount does work now.  As I can see though it has no edge over leaving trial out, only complicating things.

Thank you!