How to Trial Craft CMS and Plugin Editions
If you’d like to try Craft Team or Pro editions, or commercial plugins in the Plugin Store before buying, you can run your site from any domain that Craft does not consider to be a public domain. See How do we determine Craft is running on a public domain? for more info.
Common examples of domains that would work include:
- localhost
- 127.0.0.1
- mysite.test
- testing.mysite.com
- mysite.yolo
- mysite.com:1234
If you’re moving an existing site to a new non-public domain from a different local hostname, you’ll need to clear your data caches from Utilities → Caches in the control panel before Craft realizes the hostname has changed.
Craft won’t automatically upgrade itself; you will still have to do that manually. Go to the in-app Plugin Store, then click the Upgrade Craft CMS link in the left-hand menu.
Then press Try for free button under the Pro edition.
Craft will immediately swap editions, and update your project config files so that other environments know what edition you're using.
No credit card info is required. You can play with Craft Pro for as long as you need—provided the site is running on the same, non-public hostname.
All paid plugins in the Plugin Store will follow Craft’s lead. This means that once Craft is in trial mode, you can try out any plugin in the store for free.
If you deploy your site before purchasing Craft Pro, your website will work normally. However, Craft will ask you to either downgrade your license (by switching back to Solo) or purchase the upgraded license when you access the control panel.