Free Subscription Trials Actually Worth Signing Up For

Free trials can be incredibly valuable or complete wastes of time. The best ones give you full access to premium services long enough to get real value. The worst ones are designed to trick you into forgetting to cancel. Here are the trials that genuinely deliver value in 2026.

Streaming Services

Apple TV Plus offers a three-month free trial when you purchase any Apple device, and periodic seven-day free trials for non-Apple users. The content library has grown substantially with shows like Severance, The Morning Show, and Ted Lasso. Paramount Plus offers a seven-day trial with a strong movie catalog and live sports.

Discovery Plus provides a seven-day free trial with thousands of hours of documentary and reality content. Peacock offers a free tier with ads that includes a surprising amount of content. YouTube Premium's one-month trial is worth taking for ad-free viewing and YouTube Music access alone — the productivity boost from no ads is substantial.

Software and Productivity

Notion offers a free personal plan that's genuinely useful without upgrading. Canva Pro provides a thirty-day trial with full access to premium templates, stock photos, and design tools. Grammarly Premium offers a seven-day trial that includes advanced grammar checking, plagiarism detection, and tone analysis.

Adobe Creative Cloud provides a seven-day free trial of the entire suite — enough time to complete a project and evaluate whether the subscription is worth it. Figma offers a free plan for individuals that's remarkably full-featured. Todoist, Evernote, and Bear all have free tiers that work well for most users.

Health and Fitness

Peloton app offers a thirty-day free trial with access to thousands of cycling, running, strength, yoga, and meditation classes — no Peloton equipment required. Headspace provides a fourteen-day free trial of their meditation and mindfulness platform. Calm offers a seven-day trial with sleep stories, meditation, and relaxation content.

MyFitnessPal Premium offers a thirty-day trial with advanced nutrition tracking. Strava Premium provides a sixty-day trial for runners and cyclists with detailed analytics. Apple Fitness Plus offers a one-month trial even without an Apple Watch, expanding to three months with one.

Learning Platforms

Audible offers a thirty-day trial with one free audiobook that you keep forever, even if you cancel. Kindle Unlimited provides a thirty-day trial with access to over two million ebooks. Skillshare offers a seven-day free trial with thousands of creative classes. MasterClass occasionally offers trial periods for their celebrity-taught classes.

LinkedIn Learning offers a one-month trial with access to thousands of professional development courses. Coursera Plus offers a seven-day trial with access to over seven thousand courses from top universities. Many of these come with certificates that look great on your resume.

How to Manage Free Trials

The single most important tip: set a calendar reminder for two days before each trial ends. Use a service like Trim or Truebill to track all your subscriptions in one place. Some people use virtual credit card numbers from services like Privacy.com, which let you set spending limits so forgotten trials can't charge you. Take the trial, get the value, and make an informed decision about whether to continue.