When a price page says nothing about your card October 2026
Companies shout about not taking your card. We counted how loudly, across every trial we have read, and the number turns silence into a signal you can act on.
Checked by hand on 6 October 2026, on each company’s own pages.
The short answer
If you read nothing else, read this.
- Of the 681 free trials we have read, only 444 say anything at all about whether a card is needed. 237 say nothing (35%).
- Of the ones that do speak, 90% are saying there is no card (400 of 444). Only 44 admit they take one.
- So the silence is not neutral. "No credit card required" is a selling line, and a company that has it almost always prints it.
- When a trial page does not mention the card at all, assume it wants one, and go and check before you start.
Nobody keeps good news to themselves.
The finding
We keep 681 free trials in this catalogue, each one read off the company's own page, each fact kept with the sentence that states it.
We expected the card question to split roughly down the middle. It does not. Of the 444 trials whose page says anything about a card, 400 say there is none and 44 say there is one. That is 90 against 10.
That lopsidedness is the whole point. "No credit card required" is not a disclosure, it is a boast: it lowers the barrier, so a company that can say it does say it, in the hero, on the button, in the FAQ. Which means the 237 trials that say nothing are not 237 companies that forgot. They are mostly companies with nothing to boast about.
Why this matters more than the trial length
Everyone compares trial lengths. Fourteen days against thirty feels like the thing to weigh up.
It is not. A thirty-day trial that took your card is a subscription you have to remember to stop. A seven-day trial that took nothing is seven days that end by themselves. The card decides whether forgetting costs you money, and the trial length only decides when.
That is also why the companies that take a card tend to put the sentence somewhere other than the price page.
They do tell you. Elsewhere.
Of the 44 companies that admit a card, 19 state it somewhere other than their pricing page: a FAQ, a downloads page, a support article in a different help centre.
Google says it in a Google One support article, not on the Gemini plans page. Norton says it on its downloads page. Avast says it on the product page rather than in the price table. Crazy Egg says it in the FAQ. Outseta says it on the get-started page.
None of that is a lie. All of it is a sentence placed where a person comparing prices will not be standing.
What to do with this
Before you start any trial where the page has not said the words:
1. Search the page for "card", then for "payment". Two seconds, and it settles most of them. 2. Open the FAQ, which is where the admission usually lives when it is not on the price page. 3. Go as far as the signup form without finishing it. The card field appears before the confirm button, always. 4. If you still cannot tell, assume it wants one and put a reminder in for the day before the trial ends.
On every tool page on this site, the card line says one of three things: no card needed, card needed, or not said. "Not said" means we opened their page and it was silent, and now you know what that usually means.
Every tool in the catalogue whose own page says a card is needed to start. The sentence is on each tool's page, with the address it came from.
The companies that admit it 24
PDF tools and e-signatures
30 days freeNo cardFree plan
Passwords and identity
30 days freeCard neededFree planthen $3/mo
Heatmaps, replay and A/B testing
30 days freeCard neededFree planthen $29/mo
Lead generation
14 days freeCard neededFree planthen $49/mo
Social media and creators
14 days freeCard neededFree planthen $39/mo
Notes, docs and files
14 days freeCard neededFree planthen €2.16/mo
VPN and private browsing
14 days freeCard neededFree planthen $7/mo
Forms and surveys
14 days freeCard neededFree planthen $29/mo
Content and writing
3 days freeCard neededFree plan
PDF tools and e-signatures
3 days freeCard neededFree planthen $7.99/mo, billed yearly
AI chat and research
Free trialCard neededFree planthen $19.99/mo
VPN and private browsing
60 days freeCard needed
Affiliate and referral programs
30 days freeCard neededthen $49/mo
Websites and ecommerce
14 days freeCard neededthen $99/mo
Online stores and selling
14 days freeCard neededthen $99/mo
AI music and audio
7 days freethen $38/mo
Websites and ecommerce
7 days freeCard neededthen €10/mo
AI image and design
7 days freeCard neededthen $15/mo
SEO and search marketing
7 days freeCard needed
Customer support
7 days freeCard neededthen $59/mo
AI image and design
14 days freeCard neededthen $45/mo
Time tracking and day planning
7 days freeCard neededthen $34/mo
Analytics
7 days freeCard neededthen $15/mo
Antivirus and device security
7 days freeCard neededthen $94.99/yr
Their own words, tool by tool (24)
- DocHub: “Use our always-free plan or try advanced functionality for 30 days at no cost.”
- Cisco Duo: “30-day free trial”
- Crazy Egg: “free for 30 days”
- Involve.me: “To activate a 14-day trial of a paid plan, you’ll need to select a plan and enter your billing details.”
- ManyChat: “You can test-drive Essential or Pro free for 14 days - no strings, no begging required. If it doesn't slap, cancel.”
- Notesnook: “14-day free trial.”
- OpenVPN: “Start 14-Day Free Trial Or Buy Now ”
- Typeform: “Try free for 14 days”
- Wordtune: “The free trial lasts 3 days from the date of purchase.”
- Xodo: “If you need more than 1 action to fully evaluate Xodo Web, you can start a 3-day free trial.”
- Gemini: “Trials memberships are available for new customers only, unless otherwise specified.”
- Avast SecureLine VPN: “Try it free for 60 days (Pay $0 at checkout)”
- LeadDyno: “30-day free trial! Manage affiliates and referrals easily with automated link tracking, commissions, communications, and more!”
- Instapage: “Start 14-day free trial”
- Outseta: “14-day free trial with every plan.”
- Alitu: “When you sign up to Alitu you'll get a 7-day free trial.”
- Leadpages: “Full access to whichever plan you choose for 7 days.”
- Plus AI presentation maker: “All paid plans start with a 7-day free trial.”
- Serpstat: “Yes, we offer a free 7-day trial so you can explore the core features of our platform without any commitment.”
- SiteGPT: “Every self-serve plan starts with a 7-day free trial — credit card required, cancel anytime before it ends.”
- Beautiful: “You can try out Pro or Team plan features with a 14-day free trial, which gives you unrestricted access to everything in the plan—unlimited slides, AI-powered content generation, analytics, and more.”
- Akiflow: “New customers receive a 7-day full-access trial; a card is required, and the selected subscription begins after the trial unless it is cancelled.”
- Fathom Analytics: “Every plan includes the same analytics features and starts with a 7-day free trial.”
- Norton: “Download Norton with 7-day free trials.*”
It is not spread evenly
Some corners of software are much quieter about this than others. Counting only the shelves where we have read twelve trials or more:
Quietest
| Shelf | Trials read | Say nothing about the card | | --- | --- | --- | | automation | 18 | 61% | | ecommerce | 17 | 59% | | notes | 16 | 56% | | coding | 37 | 54% |
Loudest
| Shelf | Trials read | Say nothing about the card | | --- | --- | --- | | time-tracking | 14 | 7% | | projects | 24 | 13% | | support | 37 | 14% | | social | 33 | 18% |
The pattern is not subtle. Tools sold to a team that will evaluate them properly, time tracking, support desks, project tools, say it plainly, because a buyer in that seat will ask anyway. Tools sold to one person in a hurry, writing, automation, marketing, say it far less often.
The best-known ones
123 of the 732 tools that show a monthly price (17%) only give that price for a year paid up front. These are the 24 most visited.
How we counted
Every number on this page is worked out from our catalogue at the moment you load it, not typed in by hand, so it cannot drift away from what we last read.
A tool counts as "says there is no card" only when its own page contains a sentence saying so, and we keep that sentence. Same for the ones that say a card is needed. Everything else is "not said", which is a statement about their page and not about their product: it means we opened it and found nothing, not that we know what happens at their checkout.
That distinction is the reason this page exists. If we had guessed at the silent ones, we would have had a tidier table and nothing to tell you.
Questions
Which free trials really need no credit card?
Hundreds of them, and they are the ones that say so out loud. In our catalogue the companies whose page states there is no card outnumber the ones who admit taking a card by about thirteen to one. Any tool page here shows the sentence we found, with the address it came from, so you can check it on their site before you sign up.
What does it mean when a price page says nothing about a credit card?
Usually that they take one. 'No credit card required' is a selling line that lowers the barrier to signing up, so a company that can print it almost always does. Across every trial we have read, roughly nine in ten of the pages that mention the card at all mention it to say there is none. Silence is the exception that does not brag.
Where do companies hide the fact that a card is needed?
Not on the pricing page. Of the companies in our catalogue that admit taking a card, several state it in a FAQ, on a downloads page, or in a help-centre article on a different domain entirely. Google states it in a Google One support article rather than on the Gemini plans page.
Is a longer free trial better?
Not on its own. A thirty-day trial that took your card is a subscription you have to remember to cancel; a seven-day trial that took nothing simply stops. Check the card before you check the calendar.
How do I check before signing up?
Search their page for the word 'card', then 'payment'. If neither appears, open the FAQ, then walk the signup form as far as the step before the confirm button, which is where the card field always appears. If it is still unclear, treat it as a card trial and set a reminder for the day before it ends.
How we checked
Every fact here comes from the company’s own page, with the sentence it is in. The facts checked for this guide show the day we read them. The tables come from our catalogue, which re-reads each price page on its own. When a page does not say something, we write that, and we never guess. How we check