Suppose there is an app that lets you enroll to courses in exchange of a subscription fee. If there is any difference between the two, which one to use?
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When accepting payments in an app, do we have to use inapp purchasing, can we use Stripe for example? I ask because it takes way too long for apple to pay us when people buy. Also, does anyone know of a good open source library that I can use to accept payments with apple pay, credit card, etc?
Im selling subscriptions to view book summaries.
It really depend's what you are selling.
Checkout Apple's Human Interface Guidelines
It’s important for app developers to understand the difference between in-app purchase and Apple Pay. Use in-app purchase to sell virtual goods in your app, such as premium content for your app and subscriptions for digital content. Use Apple Pay in your app to sell physical goods like groceries, clothing, and appliances; for services such as club memberships, hotel reservations, and event tickets; and for donations.
As for a library, Revenuecat is brilliant, but then again, it depends on what you are selling and if it works for your needs. They have a Stripe integration.
My Application got rejected Recently with following error
Guideline 3.1.1 - Business - Payments - In-App Purchase
We noticed that your app offers a subscription with a mechanism other than the in-app purchase API.
Next Steps
To resolve this issue, please revise your app to ensure that the subscription for products used within the app is offered using the in-app purchase API, with the exception of the content specified in guideline 3.1.3 of the App Store Review Guidelines.
In-App Purchase
It may be appropriate to revise your app to use the in-app purchase API to provide content purchasing functionality.
In-app purchase provides several benefits, including:
The flexibility to support a variety of business models.
Impacting your app ranking by consolidating your sales to one app rather than distributing them across multiple apps.
An effective marketing vehicle to drive additional sales of new content.
For step-by-step instructions on in-app purchase creation within App Store Connect, refer to App Store Connect Help.
You can't sell subscription using Stripe, because it's a digital property.
More info:
There are a couple different ways to integrate payments into your iOS
app: Apple Pay and In-App Purchases. It’s important to understand when
each option should be used.
You can use Apple Pay to sell physical goods such as groceries,
clothing, and appliances. Also use Apple Pay for services such as club
memberships, hotel reservations, and tickets for events. These
transactions will be processed through Stripe and you’ll only need to
pay Stripe’s processing fee. You can read more about Apple Pay here.
You are required to use Apple’s In-App Purchase API to sell virtual
goods such as premium content for your app, and subscriptions for
digital content. Specifically, Apple’s developer terms require that
the In-App Purchase API must be used for digital “content,
functionality, or services” such as premium features or credits. If
you use the In-App Purchase API, the transactions will be processed by
Apple, which will charge a fee of 30% of the total transaction.
Docs: https://stripe.com/docs/mobile/ios#using-stripe-and-apple-pay-vs-in-app-purchases
You can't use a payment gateway other than InApp purchase to offer soft services/digital good transactions(Any functionality within the app) in your app.
I'm developing an app that allows users to subscribe to each other's content via paid subscription. For example, user A can subscribe to user B's channel for $5/month and I take a small fee from the transaction (user B gets the remainder).
Apple policy states that all in-app digital purchases and subscriptions must be done with Apple In-App Purchase, but does this include digital user marketplaces? I'm in the middle of implementing Stripe but I'm not sure if this is allowed.
If I have to use the In-App Purchases, does this even support my model?
Thanks!
If you want to facilitate the transaction through your app, then yes, it needs to be done through an in-app purchase. You can use Stripe for users that subscribe on your website, but you can't direct users there to make a purchase from your app.
Apps that operate across multiple platforms may allow users to access
content, subscriptions, or features they have acquired elsewhere,
including consumable items in multi-platform games, provided those
items are also available as in-app purchases within the app. You must
not directly or indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method
other than in-app purchase, and your general communications about
other purchasing methods must not discourage use of in-app purchase.
With in-app purchases, you'll need to facilitate the payouts yourself. This could be difficult since you'll probably want to wait until Apple pays you before you distribute (usually 1+ month after purchase), and you'll have to track refunds and cancellations. If your app is available globally there's also the fact that you'll get paid out different $$ for the same subscription depending on the country it was purchased due to tax differences.
Also, since you can only be subscribed to a single product within a subscription group, you won't be able to have a user subscribe to channel A and channel B with 2 subscriptions.
Really, the best solution for this type of marketplace is to use something like Stripe Connect as you've figured out. However, you'll have to process this purchase outside of your app and not direct users there from within your app.
A solution to use in-app purchases could be to switch from a subscription to a consumable purchase to unlock content for a specific period and manage the expiration date yourself. This would allow a user to make multiple purchases to unlock multiple channels. The downside is that this won't auto-renew, which may mean less revenue for you. You'd still have to handle the payouts yourself, but it would be simpler to manage one-off purchases then dealing with all of the nuances of iOS subscriptions.
So I went through the trouble of implementing a Stripe payment system in my app, and submitted the app for review a few days ago. My app got rejected and Apple notified me that you have to use the In-App Purchase API for any payment system. This just doesn't seem right - why does Stripe even have an iOS SDK in that case?
You can use Stripe in an iOS app.
Apple accepts it when the customer can buy something which is not digital. for example your Instagram pictures printed on a mug, a computer and so on.
But if you use Stripe for something like a subscription (like a "gold access" to a revue) or to buy credits for a game, Apple will refuse the app and force you to use In-app purchase.
take a look here:
There are a couple different ways to integrate payments into your iOS app: Apple Pay and In-App Purchases. It’s important to understand
when each option should be used.
You can use Apple Pay to sell physical goods such as groceries,
clothing, and appliances. Also use Apple Pay for services such as club
memberships, hotel reservations, and tickets for events. These
transactions will be processed through Stripe and you’ll only need to
pay Stripe’s processing fee. You can read more about Apple Pay here.
You are required to use Apple’s In-App Purchase API to sell virtual goods such as premium content for your app, and subscriptions for digital content. Specifically, Apple’s developer terms require that the In-App Purchase API must be used for digital “content, functionality, or services” such as premium features or credits. If you use the In-App Purchase API, the transactions will be processed by Apple, which will charge a fee of 30% of the total transaction.
https://support.stripe.com/questions/apple-and-stripe-tos-and-fees
hope it helps
Please, help me to clarify purchases types.
I have an ionic project, where a user has a possibility to post to feed. But he/she has to pay for each news he/she posts.
I know that purchases are of three types: consumable, non-consumable and subscriptions.
I cant understand what is the type of such kind of purchases?
You would be a consumable type as you are paying every time you post.
Good description from a previous post https://stackoverflow.com/a/21251768/5270656
Ref: itunesconnect.apple.com
Everything is here:
Consumable (pay everytime)
A consumable In-App Purchase must be purchased every time
the user downloads it. One-time services, such as fish food in a
fishing app, are usually implemented as consumables.
Select Non-Consumable (one time payment)
Non-consumable In-App Purchases only need to be
purchased once by users. Services that do not expire or decrease with
use are usually implemented as non-consumables, such as new race
tracks for a game app.
Select Auto-Renewable Subscriptions (will deduct money from your credit card on a cycle complete)
Auto-renewable Subscriptions allow
the user to purchase updating and dynamic content for a set duration
of time. Subscriptions renew automatically unless the user opts out,
such as magazine subscriptions.
Select Free Subscription (no payment and is still visible even you did not submitted your account detail to itunes connect)
Free subscriptions are a way for developers
to put free subscription content in Newsstand. Once a user signs up
for a free subscription, it will be available on all devices
associated with the user’s Apple ID. Note that free subscriptions do
not expire and can only be offered in Newsstand-enabled apps.
Select Non-Renewing (need to renew manually)
Subscription Non-Renewing Subscriptions allow the
sale of services with a limited duration. Non-Renewing Subscriptions
must be used for In-App Purchases that offer time-based access to
static content. Examples include a one week subscription to voice
guidance feature within a navigation app or an annual subscription to
online catalog of archived video or audio.