Free Trials for Paymenter: trial game servers, one per person
A free trial is the easiest way to sell a game server, but Paymenter 1.5.9 has no trials of its own, and neither has its development branch. A free plan alone lets the same person take a new server again and again, and nothing ends it.
On sale on Gumroad. The SourceXchange listing is coming soon.
- Requires
- Paymenter 1.5 with its scheduler and queue worker
- Tested with
- Paymenter 1.5.9; Pterodactyl 2.0 for Paymenter 1.0.1 on Pterodactyl 2.0.0-beta.2 and 1.15.1
- Stored for the checks
- Keyed hashes (HMAC-SHA256) of account, email and IP
- Price
- $12.99, one Paymenter installation
Free Trials turns a free plan into a trial of, say, 24 hours or 3 days. Each person gets one, is reminded before it ends, and the server is suspended at the end and terminated after a few grace days. A client who wants to keep it clicks Upgrade and keep my server, pays the first period of the paid plan, and keeps the same server with its files and address.
What Free Trials for Paymenter does
Trial plans
Any plan of type Free becomes a trial: length in hours or days, a reminder, grace days before termination (0 = at the end) and the paid plan it converts to.
One trial per person
Checked on the server at checkout by account, normalized email address (+tags and Gmail dots removed) and IP address within a window. A verified email is required unless you allow unverified ones.
Race-safe
Trial orders wait for one database lock, so two orders at the same moment, in two tabs or from two accounts, never both get a trial.
Reminder and banner
A reminder email and client area notification through Paymenter's own editable templates, and a banner on every client page while a trial runs.
Paymenter's own suspend and terminate
The end uses Paymenter's suspend and terminate jobs, so your server extension does the panel work, exactly as for an overdue service.
Upgrade and keep my server
An ordinary invoice for the paid plan. Paying it moves the same service and panel server to that plan and unsuspends an ended trial. A paid plan of another product brings that product's resources.
How it works
- Install. Admin → Extensions → Available Extensions → Upload Extension, upload the zip, click Install next to Free Trials (Karelia Labs) and turn on Enabled.
- Create the trial product. A product of its own, for example "Minecraft 4 GB – 3-day free trial", with one plan of type Free.
- Set the trial. Admin → Free Trials → Trial products → Settings: length, reminder, grace days and the paid plan it converts to.
Screenshots
What the checks can and cannot stop
They stop a second trial on the same account, on an alias of the same mailbox, or from the same connection within the IP window (30 days by default; IPv6 is compared by /64).
They cannot stop someone with a different mailbox, a VPN or another network, and people behind one shared address count as one. Paymenter's social login does not store the Discord, Google or GitHub account id, so there is no separate check for it; the email check covers the same ground. There is no fingerprinting and no outside service.
Pricing
One Paymenter installation. Updates within 1.x, full source.
Good to know
- Behind Cloudflare or another proxy, set Paymenter's Trusted Proxies (Admin → Settings → Security), so the IP check sees each client's own address. If you cannot, set the IP window to 0.
- Mail must be set up in Paymenter for the reminder and end emails. Without mail, the client area notifications and the banner still work.
- It uses only Paymenter's own suspend, unsuspend, terminate and upgrade jobs, so other server extensions that support them should work too. Only the Pterodactyl panels above were tested.
- While the extension is turned off, trial products are sold out.
Privacy
Free Trials runs inside your own Paymenter and uses no outside service.
For each trial it stores the client, the service, the trial and paid plan, the dates and the status. For the checks it stores only keyed hashes (HMAC-SHA256 with your Paymenter app key) of the account id, the normalized email address and the IP address. The email address and IP address themselves are not stored by Free Trials.
IP hashes are deleted as soon as they are older than the IP window. An ended trial and its hashes are deleted after the retention period (365 days unless changed).
Guides
FAQ
Does the client get a new server when they upgrade?
No. The same service and the same panel server move to the paid plan, with their files and address.
What if a client pays after the trial ended?
The server is suspended until then; paying unsuspends it. After the grace days it is terminated.
Can a client order two trials at once, or in two browser tabs?
No. The second order waits for the first one and is refused.
What happens when I turn the extension off or uninstall it?
While it is off, trial products are sold out. Uninstalling hands running trials to Paymenter's own billing (paid plan, due on the trial's end date) and gives trial products their stock back.
Can I change the emails?
Yes, under Admin → Other → Notification Templates (free_trial_ending, free_trial_ended).
Can I see why someone cannot start a trial?
Yes. Admin → Free Trials has Check a client, which shows the reason, and Reset eligibility.
Related tools
Auto Stock for Paymenter
Keeps Paymenter product stock equal to the servers that still fit on your Pterodactyl 1.x or 2.0 nodes, so full nodes show as out of stock, not failed deploys.
Pay All Invoices for Paymenter
Free Paymenter extension: clients pay all unpaid invoices with one payment and one gateway fee. Each invoice is then paid on its own, so services renew. MIT.
Pelican Panel extension for Paymenter
Free Paymenter server extension for Pelican Panel: creates, suspends, upgrades and deletes game servers, with eggs and variables from Pelican and node tags.
Karelia Bridge
Customers open Pterodactyl 2.0 from Paymenter already signed in, and see due dates and unpaid invoices in the panel. Official 2.0 extension, no core edits.
Updated 2026-10-25