Trial status and the Free tier

You don't need a credit card to start using Petsoft. Signing up puts your organization straight onto the Free tier with full product access — no card, no plan choice, nothing to authorize. You pick a paid plan later, whenever you're ready, from the Subscription Tier page.

That convenience comes with one rule worth knowing up front: an account that never adds a payment method eventually goes inactive. This article covers what Trial status means, how the Free tier works, and the timeline that leads to deactivation if you never upgrade.

What Trial status means

Every new organization is in Trial status the moment it finishes the setup wizard — regardless of whether it owes anything. Trial is not a limited preview: you get the same reservations, staff access, and pet parent portal as a paying account. Nothing is gated behind Trial status itself.

Petsoft considers your first payment "settled" once you've either:

• Stayed on the Free tier (which settles automatically, since nothing is owed), or
• Added a card and successfully paid for a paid tier.

A declined card, or no card at all, leaves your organization unsettled — which matters for the timeline below.

The Free tier

The Free tier is a real, permanent option — not a countdown. It never expires on its own and never asks for a card. It doesn't appear as a selectable card next to the paid tiers on the Subscription Tier page (there's nothing to compare it against), but your current plan still shows there as Free.

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Staying on Free tier does not exempt your account from the 30-day timeline below. Petsoft only stops that clock once you've paid for a paid tier — a Free-tier account that never upgrades is treated the same as a paid-tier account that never adds a card. If you intend to stay on Free tier past 30 days, keep reading.

Adding a payment method and picking a plan

Go to Organization > Billing > Subscription Tier.

• If your organization has no Approved payment yet (a fresh Free-tier signup, or a paid tier that's still owed its first charge), the page shows a payment form in place of the usual switch-tier buttons. Enter a card and Petsoft immediately attempts to settle your account.
• If you're on Free tier and want to switch to a paid plan, click Switch Tier on the plan you want.
  • If you already have a card on file, the switch applies immediately.
  • If you don't, Petsoft sends you to add one first, then finishes the switch automatically as soon as the card saves — you don't need to come back and click Switch Tier again.

A declined card doesn't lock you out. You stay in Trial with full access, the card you entered stays on file, and you can try again any time from the same page.

What happens if you never add a payment method

If your organization stays unsettled — still on Free with no upgrade, or on a paid tier with no successful payment — Petsoft counts down from the day your Trial started:

Day	What happens
Day 0	Trial starts, right after you finish the setup wizard.
Day 15	If you're still unsettled, Petsoft emails your Account Owner(s) a reminder that your trial is ending.
Day 30	If you're still unsettled 15 days after that reminder, Petsoft deactivates your organization.

Once your account is deactivated, logging in takes you to the Reactivation wizard instead of your dashboard — see Reactivation & account suspension for what that involves and what stops working in the meantime.

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An active subscription promo code pauses this entire timeline — no reminder, no deactivation — for as long as the promo has uses remaining. Once it runs out, the countdown picks back up from where your organization's tier and payment status put it.

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Making a payment at any point — even the same day as the reminder email, or the day before deactivation — settles your account and cancels the rest of the countdown. There's no need to contact support to stop it; just add a card and complete a successful charge (or switch to Free, though see the warning above).

Conclusion

Petsoft lets you start using the product in full before you've committed to a plan or entered a card. The trade-off is a 30-day clock: 15 days to a reminder email, 15 more to deactivation, unless you settle your account by paying for a paid tier or an active promo code is covering you. The Free tier itself never expires as a feature, but it doesn't stop that clock either — the only things that do are a successful payment or an active promo.

Related

• Managing Your Petsoft Subscription — updating your card, switching tiers, and billing history once you're past this stage.
• Reactivation & account suspension — what happens, and what to do, if your account does go inactive.
• Onboarding Checklist — the setup wizard that puts you into Trial status in the first place.