100% Australian owned and operated
The short version
- What it is: an email plan, website builder or other service added free for a while, which turns into a paid plan unless you cancel.
- Why it works: nothing is charged today, the card is already on file, and the date is easy to forget.
- How to beat it: don’t take trials you don’t want. If you do, put the end date in your calendar the same day.
- At Chill Domains: we don’t sell trials or website builders, and our optional mailbox is paid up front at its full list price, with no free period.
What does it look like?
- 1$0.00 today, and already ticked.
- 2The paid part: per mailbox, billed for a whole year at once, and before GST.
- 3“Due today” is true. It just isn’t what this order will cost you.
When the three months are up, that one mailbox renews at $7.99 a month billed annually: $95.88 before GST, or $105.47 inc GST, in one charge. The domain was $15.39 inc GST.
Why does it work on us?
We put more weight on today than on later, so “free now” feels better than the paid part feels bad. Then we forget. The seller doesn’t have to: the card is on file and the date is in their system. A trial that starts on its own and ends with a charge turns your forgetting into revenue.
Where else will I see it?
Streaming, apps, software and gyms, and “first box free” meal kits. Trials themselves can be fair, and a good one tells you before it charges. The pattern is a trial that’s added for you, ends quietly, and is hard to cancel.
How do I stay in control?
- Untick trials you didn’t come for. You can always add a service later.
- If you want the trial, read what it renews at, how often it bills, and per what (per mailbox, per user, per site).
- Put the end date in your calendar the same day, a few days early.
- Look for a way to turn renewal off straight away. Many services let you cancel and keep the free period.
What does the law say?
A new law passed in July 2026 adds rules for subscriptions from 1 July 2027. Before you sign up, a business will have to tell you clearly that it’s a subscription, what it costs, how it renews and how to cancel, and that covers contracts that start free or cheap and then move to a paid rate. Cancelling has to be straightforward, and if you could sign up online, you must be able to cancel online. Some of those rules also protect small businesses.
What does Chill Domains do instead?
At Chill Domains. We don’t sell trials or website builders, so there’s nothing in our checkout to turn into a paid plan later. Our optional mailbox is the full list price from day one, with no intro discount, and it doesn’t renew automatically. The pricing page says who we’d use for the rest.
Questions people ask
Can I cancel a free trial straight away and keep the free period?
I was charged after a trial I forgot about. What can I do?
Do I need a mailbox from my domain seller?
Sources
- Deceptive Patterns: Hidden subscription, Harry Brignull’s catalogue of deceptive design.
- Australia’s new unfair trading practices laws (Ashurst, 2026) and the Parliamentary Library’s Bills Digest: the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Bill 2026, passed in July 2026, with its new rules starting on 1 July 2027.
- Chill Domains pricing and our promises: our own prices and terms, as at 27 October 2026.
General information, not legal or financial advice. We sell domains, so read this as a seller’s view.
Keep reading
- Dark patterns in the domain business: every pattern we’ve written up, and the case files.
- Extras in the cart: how the trial got into the cart.
- Auto-renew tricks: the same problem, on the domain itself.
- Email and your domain: your domain and your mailbox don’t have to come from the same company.