We have auto-renewable subscriptions in our app with introductory offer (3 days free trial). The problem is that we experiencing some really strange metrics in our trends reports (Sale and trends). We started our ad campaign with different sources. As a result, we got 500 subscribers with introductory offer. The problem is, that when trial ends, almost all subscribers moves to "Billing retry" state. Almost 95% of all subscribers. It's not a "Cancelled" state, it's exactly problem with billing (Apple cannot charge money from a card or something went wrong with payment). We believe that this is abnormal. A few days after we started a whole new ad campaign with independent new sources. Same result. 90% of subscribers in "Billing retry".
A few tickets to Apple support. Without results. Default responses with public documentation text.Its a new app, so we do not have any metrics to compare with. Does anyone have any idea what it might be? Guys, we really stuck :( Could there be a problem on our side (in code or maybe with AppStoreConnect purchases settings)?
Related
I submitted my first built with subscriptions. The built got approved 2 weeks ago, the subscriptions are still waiting for review. For some reason the subscription review process seems to be a different team / timeline.
Apple has been fairly fast with built reviews in my experience (1-2 business days). But reviewing my subscriptions which should be really simple (just a price list?) is now stuck for 2 weeks already in Waiting for review.
This is a major problem since my app is live, and offers upgrade buttons e.t.c. Users are super confused by having these buttons but not seeing any plans to upgrade to.
Is this normal? I tried to reach out multiple times via contact forms but no response yet.
In order to be able to better estimate the revenue income of our app, we implemented a Database function that reliably (we tested it in Sandbox mode) increases a subscription counter for the subscription that was made by one once a subscription has been made.
This function is only triggered once an in-app purchase has been successful (i.e. when we receive the feedback from StoreKit to enable the Premium functions). Now, we have found enormous discrepancies between the data we observed and the data App Store Connect gives us.
For the past two days, upon confirmation of purchase via StoreKit, our app has 13 times enabled premium functions on a monthly subscription basis, and 14 times on a yearly subscription basis.
However, App Store Connect tells us we had one yearly subscription and 5 monthlies.
Furthermore, for the one premium subscription that generated sales of $5.60, Apple has added proceeds of $3.73 - but that's more than 30% commission. That's almost 35%.
The sales that Apple has not accounted for amount to more than $70.
Can anybody explain to me what's going on, why Apple is not showing us subscriptions that definitely happened and takes more commission than agreed?
My bet is that you are not aggregating the prices correctly on your database side. It is extremely complicated thing to do, despite superficially seeming simple.
The second guess is that ItunesConnect revenue is delayed by day or three (they were experiencing delays).
If you want to see know the revenue calculation is done correctly, I recommend hooking yourself to RevenueCat (quite simple process), and to double check numbers.
Regarding the price, don’t forget their is also sales tax/VAT that is deducted too. Eg. Any sales made in the UK will have 20% vat removed, then Apple takes 30% and you get the rest.
BACKGROUND
I'm helping a 3rd party host 3 apps that they paid me to write (they've given me access to their Apple credentials - created expressly for this app - in order to manage the iTunesConnect process).
Because of this, I get access to all of the sales data, etc. through iTunesConnect. We currently have all 3 apps released, two of which are first-time releases and one of which has been on the store for a few months and updated a couple of times. The first app was initially released with a $1.99 price point as an introductory price, which went up to $3.99 after about a month.
ACTUAL QUESTION
I just got my daily report from AppFigures.com (highly recommended, by the way; it's a relatively cheap way to get a good amount of automated data and analytics about app sales), and I noticed that app #1 had 3 refunds yesterday. We've only had 7 refunds ever, and all 3 of these refunds were originally purchased at the $1.99 price point. Therefore, this has made me very curious as to why they got the refund NOW. We had bugs earlier on that have subsequently been resolved by updates, so I don't understand why someone would have a legitimate reason to ask for and receive a refund at this point.
Please note: I'm fully aware that I'll never get the information to tie back directly to the user. I understand why, but it's a bit of a shame (and it's why we included a voluntary contact/feedback mechanism in the app itself). I'm just wondering if I can see from Apple the reason they selected for requesting the refund.
Basically, I'd like to answer the following question:
"Why did Apple think it was justified to refund this user's money?"
I'm guessing it would be a helpful piece of information for us; if there's something wrong with the app and we're not aware, this could help us fix it. Does anybody know how/if that information is available?
I did what Injuanj suggested and contacted Apple directly.
Here's their (completely unhelpful) response:
Thank you for contacting us about your Sales and Trends reports.
I understand that you are wanting more information regarding refunds.
You can find Refund information for your content by filtering your Top
Content dashboard to Transaction Type > Refund. Refunds will be
indicated as negative values.
Apple does not provide customer or refund information at this time.
If you have further questions regarding your sales reports, please let
us know. We're happy to help.
Best regards,
Julie
iTunes Provider Support
I already knew how to view my refund/return count, which is how I knew to send the email in the first place!
I didn't ask for customer information. I know Apple's not going to give that. Duh. I actually specified this in my original email.
I guess the real answer here is this:
Apple does not provide customer or refund information at this time.
We recently had a purchase on one of our apps. However, to our knowledge or the apps knowledge, the purchase never came through.
This only came to our attention when our user alerted us that they never received their virtual good. After looking into this, we saw the app sent the call off to itunes to process the payment, but never received the call back.
We asked the user to forward on the receipt to confirm the payment. The iTunes receipt read:
In App Purchase $15.99
Store Credit Total: $0.13
Payment Card Total: $15.86
Order Total: $15.99
"Store Credit"?! Would this have had some effect on the call back process to our app? Meaning we missed this sale totally? Is there a way around this issue?
I don't know if the 'Store credit' have any effect but we are experiencing a similar situation:
Sometimes our customers complain that they have purchased an IAP item and never received the credit in the app.
When we check their log (we keep a special log for that) we see that we got SKPaymentTransactionStateFailed response with 'Cannot connect to iTunes store' and later on, after 1-3 minutes we get SKPaymentTransactionStatePurchased.
We tried to ask Apple about it but couldn't get any explanation. I hope more people are having the same problem and can help us understand the situation.
I am facing a strange behavior with In-App-Purchase in iOS while testing with sandbox. Few things I observed, Please make your comments where I am wrong.
I know sandbox has small time interval for subscriptions like 30 minutes for 6 month subscription. I am using subscription model, when I am trying to purchase same item multiple time, it allows. Is that OK ? As per my understanding, it should allow only once to purchase and in subsequent call, it should say "Already purchased".
When I am restoring my previous purchase. Storekit is calling updateTransations with large number of previous transactions. Don't know why it is returning these large amount like 100, 200 ,245, 360, 650 seems like Random in every restore.
Please make your comments. Thanks in advance.
Regards,
OP
Dear All,
As I did not get reply on this thread. We have done testing an make the app live, app is working fine. Here are my comments that might be helpful to others.
When testing with sandbox, since time interval is not same as live app. You get 5 minutes for 3 month subscription and so on, so once your subscription expire your subscription will be renewed. If you will make one more payment request if subscription is live, you will get popup for already purchased.
Apple sends a large number of transactions, we need to add condition by our own, so that we will identify the current transaction and will process that only, rest will be ignored.
Hope this will help you all.
Thanks,
Om