When a free trial is honest

"Start your free trial" is one of the most common buttons in software, and it means very different things depending on who wrote it.

Sometimes it means exactly what it says: use the full product for a while, then decide. Often it means: start a subscription now, and we will not charge you for the first week — and we are counting on you to forget.

The difference is not in the word "trial". It is in the details, and they are usually visible before you tap.

The question that matters most

What happens when the trial ends if you do nothing?

There are only two answers:

1. The trial stops. You lose access to the paid features, and nothing is charged. If you want to keep them, you choose to buy.
2. It turns into a paid subscription. You are charged automatically unless you cancel in time.

The second is not dishonest in itself — many good products work this way and say so clearly. But it relies on your memory, and a large share of the revenue it generates comes from people who meant to cancel and did not.

On the App Store, a free trial attached to an auto-renewable subscription converts to paid automatically unless you turn off auto-renewal at least 24 hours before the trial ends. The store shows the price and renewal terms on the confirmation sheet — read that sheet, not the app's own button.

Signs of an honest trial

It starts when you choose. Not the first time you open the app, and not bundled into onboarding. You should be able to look around before the clock starts.

Its length and end date are stated. "14 days, ends on 18 October" is better than "try it free".

It does not need a payment commitment to begin, or, if it is a subscription trial, the first charge date and amount are unmissable.

It is the whole product. A trial of a crippled version tells you nothing about what you would be buying.

The ending is harmless. Your work is not deleted or locked away. You may lose the ability to use paid features, but what you made remains yours.

The price is known upfront. You should know what you would pay before you invest time in trying.

Signs of a trap

• The trial starts automatically on first launch.
• "Free" is large; the price and renewal are small, grey or behind a link.
• The annual plan is pre-selected, and the monthly option is hidden.
• Cancelling requires a different website, a phone call or a chat with retention staff.
• The paywall appears before you have seen the product, with a close button that is tiny or delayed.
• Your projects become unreadable when the trial ends.

Protecting yourself anyway

• Set a reminder for two days before the trial ends, as soon as you start it.
• Cancel immediately, if the store allows it. For App Store subscriptions, turning off auto-renew right after starting usually keeps the trial running until its end date.
• Check your subscriptions occasionally. On iPhone and iPad: Settings → [your name] → Subscriptions. On a Mac: App Store → your name → Account Settings → Subscriptions.
• Read the confirmation sheet before approving with Face ID, Touch ID or a password. It is the store's summary, not the app's.

How we design ours

For the apps where we offer a trial — Miyu Paint and Garfi, on Mac, iPhone and iPad — we use the first answer to the question above.

You start it. The apps work without a trial: Miyu Paint's free tools and Garfi's editing are available from the first launch. The trial begins only when you choose it and confirm.

It is not a subscription. On the App Store it is a free, one-time item, not an auto-renewing plan. It never renews and never charges. When the fourteen days end, it simply ends.

It is the full product. Miyu Paint's trial unlocks everything the Lifetime Unlock does. Garfi's trial unlocks watermark-free export, which is exactly what its purchase unlocks permanently.

The price is shown first. Miyu Paint shows the Lifetime Unlock price before the trial starts.

The ending is harmless. In Miyu Paint, the free tools remain and layered drafts are preserved. In Garfi, editing, saving and reopening projects remain available, and videos you already exported are unaffected.

Buying is once. If you keep using it, the purchase is a one-time unlock, not a subscription — for the reasons in why we sell software once. Mac and mobile versions are separate purchases, and the product pages say so.

This design earns less than an auto-converting subscription trial. People who forget do not pay. We think that is how it should work.