SaaS Trial Onboarding

Overview

Most trial funnels fail in one of two ways: nothing goes out because the founder is busy shipping, or a cron job blasts the full sequence regardless of who has already upgraded.

This workflow sends five emails over fourteen days and checks your upgrade API before each send after Day 0. If the user has converted, it logs the event and stops. No "last chance" emails to paying customers. Every send and conversion gets written to a Google Sheet that doubles as a lightweight tracker once you have a few rows in it.

How it runs

On signup, a JavaScript step calculates the trial end date (today plus 14 days) and formats it into a readable string like Thursday, June 12th. Every email in the sequence references this date, so the deadline stays concrete throughout the trial.

Day 0 sends immediately. For each subsequent email (Day 3, 7, 11, 13), the workflow waits the appropriate number of hours using a native Wait step, then makes a GET request to your upgrade-status API. If the user has subscribed, the workflow logs the conversion and exits. If not, the email goes out and the send is logged to the tracker sheet.

Steps

• JavaScript (map_input): Parses the signup payload, calculates the trial end date, and formats it for use in all five emails.
• Gmail + Google Sheets (day_0): Sends the welcome email immediately, then appends a row to the tracker sheet with email, name, trial end date, send timestamp, and in_progress status.
• Wait + HTTP + Switch + Gmail + Google Sheets (x4): One group per window (Day 3, 7, 11, 13). Wait the prescribed interval, call the upgrade API, branch on the result. Converted users exit with a log entry; active users get the next email and a send timestamp in the sheet.
• Exit (trial_complete): Closes out after the Day 13 email if the user never converted.

Why the upgrade check runs before every send

Checking upgrade status once at the start is not enough. A user can convert on Day 5, between the Day 3 and Day 7 emails. Without a check at each step, the Day 7 email still goes to a paying customer, and so do the nudges on Day 11 and 13.

Four extra HTTP calls over two weeks is a small price for a funnel that never emails someone about a deadline they have already acted on.

Setup

1. Connect Gmail and replace the from address in all five email steps with your verified sender.
2. Run the create-trial-tracker-sheet setup workflow once to create the Google Sheet. Paste the returned spreadsheet ID into the main workflow as variables.tracker_sheet_id.
3. Replace the upgrade-status URL in each HTTP step with your own endpoint. The workflow expects { "subscribed": true } or { "subscribed": false } in response.
4. Trigger the workflow on signup with a payload containing userEmail and userName.

When to use it

• You have a 14-day free trial and want a sequence that runs without calendar reminders.
• Your team is small and nobody is watching for conversions in real time.
• You want clean exit behavior without setting up webhooks, audience syncing, or a dedicated email platform.