Understanding your subscription and trial
This article explains MakrPrep's trial, billing states, and what happens if a payment fails or you cancel.
Steps
- Every new signup gets a 14-day free trial, no card required, granted automatically.
- MakrPrep uses Paddle as Merchant of Record, Paddle is the legal seller, handles tax/VAT compliance, chargebacks, and billing support directly. MakrPrep itself never sees your card details.
- Access follows your subscription status: active or trialing gives full access; past_due still gives full access but shows a visible warning banner (Paddle automatically retries a failed renewal for up to about 30 days, so access isn't cut immediately); canceled locks you out, though your data is preserved, never deleted.
Trial-reuse protection checks new signups against email history, including a hashed, non-reversible record kept specifically to survive a full account deletion, so a second free trial isn't available simply by deleting and re-signing up with the same email.
Settings → Billing → Subscription, showing plan name, renewal date, and price for an active subscription
What to expect
A failed payment doesn't cut you off immediately. A red banner appears across the top of every page: "Payment failed. update your card to keep your subscription active." with "update your card" linking straight to Settings. The same state is echoed in Settings → Billing itself, where the subtitle under your plan name changes to "Payment failed. Update your card to continue." Both clear automatically once Paddle's retry succeeds; you only lose access if the subscription genuinely reaches canceled.
Common issues
- Lost access unexpectedly, check your subscription status; only a true canceled state locks you out, not a temporary past_due retry window.
- Trying to get a second free trial, trial-reuse protection checks against your email history even after a full account deletion, so this isn't possible with the same email.