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How are free-trial signups tracked, and when does commission count?

On Stripe and Polar, a free trial is tracked the moment it starts, recorded as a trial with no commission yet. When it converts to a paid subscription, it becomes a pending commission awaiting your approval.

2 min read
Updated Sep 14, 2026

Free trials are captured immediately, but commission only becomes real once the trial turns into a paying customer.

The flow

  1. Trial starts: on Stripe or Polar, LinkJolt records the signup as a trial conversion with a zero amount. It shows as Trial Period, on your Commissions page as a merchant and on the Earnings page in the affiliate portal. It is attributed to the affiliate but is not yet payable.
  2. Trial converts to paid: when the first real payment succeeds, that same row is filled in with the real sale amount and commission, and becomes a pending commission waiting for your approval.
  3. You approve it, and it can be paid out like any other commission.

If you take payments somewhere else

The separate trial row happens on Stripe and Polar. On Stripe it comes from the checkout session itself, where a genuine trial arrives with a zero total and nothing yet to pay. On Polar it comes from the zero-amount order Polar creates when the trial starts.

  • Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, Gumroad, GoPay and WooCommerce: no Trial Period row is ever created. The referral is recorded when a real payment is reported, as an ordinary pending commission. The sale is not lost, it just shows up later.
  • Apple In-App Purchase: an introductory offer or a zero-price transaction is recorded straight away as Pending with no commission, flagged as a trial. That row is never rewritten afterwards. The first paid renewal arrives as its own separate line, and that line only carries commission if the campaign has Recurring commissions turned on.

One thing to watch at approval time

A trial that converts while your brand is over its monthly tracked-sales limit lands as Held rather than Pending. A held sale cannot be approved by hand. Upgrading your plan releases held sales from the current billing period.

So an affiliate who drives a lot of trials on Stripe or Polar will see trial conversions right away, but those only earn once the customer actually pays. It keeps commission tied to real revenue, not free signups.

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