Stadia

Stadia Pro free trial is now available without a credit card, but only for 30 minutes

Ben Schoon | Dec 21 2020 - 7:47 am PT

After we spotted the option earlier this year, Google is now offering a trial to Stadia Pro that’s absolutely and completely free of charge, going to the point of not even requiring a payment method up front.

Spotted by “Cloudproto” on the official Stadia Discord channel, new users of the service are now being offered a free Stadia Pro trial at no cost whatsoever. One-month trials have been available since April of this year when the free tier launched, but have always required a payment method in advance so the trial can automatically continue when the free month ends — normal practice for free trials to almost any subscription service.

When signing up for a new Stadia account today, you’ll see the screen below that allows users to start a Stadia Pro free trial with just a single click, no need to enter any payment information. The catch? These Stadia Pro trials are only valid for 30 minutes, then you’ll need to enter some form of payment method to continue the regular one-month trial.

In the video below, I signed up for Stadia on a spare Google account that had never used the service and, at the end of signup, I was presented with the new option. In a single click I was launched into Stadia and could claim Outcasters. From the start of the trial to the launch of the game, it only took about 20 seconds.

So what’s the benefit to a 30-minute trial anyway? To me, this seems like an ideal way for new Stadia users to see if their internet connection is up to par, and if there are games they really want to try out. For a completely new concept, that’s crucially important, and we’re glad to see Google offering this to new users.

As far as we can tell, this new free trial option has rolled out widely for new Stadia users, though we can’t find any Google support pages regarding the option.

Thanks Adam!