For example customer pays 4.95 or some small amount for say 5 day 7 day trial after the trial period ends they pay $20.00 per month. Or is it better to charge $20.00 per month upfront with no trial. What about a signup fee of $50.00 then a smal montly payment of $5 to $10.00 . I know it's diffrent for every site and every niche but if someone has tested the diffrent options and can let me know what wored for them that would great! The niche would be for the make money onliney industry.

Change $20 a month and just offer a 30day moneyback guarauntee. I hate trials.

Though it does depend on the niche, trials intend for you to forget you signed up and so get charged cuz u forget to cancel.

I've got both, trial and full-price sites.
It absolutely depends on the niche as people have said - but it also depends on:

1. Whether you have enough content that they can basically "make out like a bandit" by joining for the trial period and immediately cancelling. If your content is valuable, you may not want to give it all away for a few bucks.

2. Whether there's a lot of competition in your niche. If you're the only game in town, don't give them a trial opportunity - make 'em pay. If they can just move on to ten other competitors who offer trials, chances are slim they're going to join your site for full price. In that case, you get them in the door with a trial and then wow them with what they're going to continue to receive - or only give them partial access to what's inside until they upgrade.

Good luck

When I promote membership sites I always seem to make more (in the long run) by promoting sites with a trial membership.

It depends on site obviously. I think the best strategy goes like this:

10% of product 100% free/no registration (maybe ad supported)
20% of product available for registered users
100% for paying users, obviously.

Then again I sell educational related content so I give the first 3 lessons free then the next 3 lessons for registered users etc.