u/Dawn_of_an_Era

From what I understand, playing 3 matches gets you the reward, and beyond that, it's basically just like playing ranked; there is no extra reward to earn or anything to grind towards. Am I correct in this?

Recruitment can be done for free every 22 hours (and honestly way more often because Quick Coupons are given pretty generously daily), and, trial recruitment is always free. Trial recruitment Pokemon are added to your box for 7 days. Now, they kinda suck to use because they have locked stats, moves, etc., but, the bright side is, when their 7 days is up, they don't automatically leave your box. You can't use them on teams anymore, but, you can keep them indefinitely.

This is lovely because it means that you can trial recruit all the Pokemon you want, and, provided you have the box space for it, hold onto even the ones you don't need right now, in case in the future you want to unlock permanent recruitment for them. So whenever I recruit, I just always trial recruit a new Pokemon I don't have, so that, even if it has been more than 7 days since I recruited it, I can always just permanently unlock it if I later decide to try it out.

It also means that there is truly never a situation where you recruit a good Pokemon, or even a shiny, and, have to lose it because you couldn't afford to keep it.