I have created my first app and I am almost ready to submit it to the Appstore. I have spent the entirety of the last few months of quarantine focusing on this app so I am implementing a subscription in app purchase in order to repay my efforts while simultaneously adding value to my customers. There is great probability that this app will succeed.
I would like to offer 1 month, 6 months, and 12 month subscriptions. I have looked into auto-renewing subscriptions but when it comes to checking the subscription status of a user I have quickly noticed how complicated everything is with Apple's encrypted receipts.
I would like to offer subscriptions but it seem that I will be unable to offer auto-renewing subscriptions as I have absolutely no clue how to decrypt and parse Apple's receipts and resources online seem feeble.
Would it be best/easiest to have my subscriptions as non-renewable or even consumables? This way I could track my users subscription status on my own backend without the added layer of complexity that comes with parsing encrypted data from Apple.
From a business perspective, notifying a user that their subscription is ending is certainly not as effective as auto-renewing it. Will there be a noticeable difference in revenue if I set my subscriptions to consumables or non-renewing?
I thank the community ahead of time for its insights.
In your case, if you don't want to waste your time on handling auto-renewable subscriptions, you can use subscriptions backend as a service like ours or competitor's: Apphud or RevenueCat. We do exactly what you need. Hope that helps, thanks.
Auto renewable subscriptions would be the best option for you in terms of revenue. Although customers are notified by the apple itself for renewal deduction so you just need a backend services which will be keep on tracking on extending the user subscriptions through the initial receipt stored in your databases.
You need to use meta data from the receipt under key "latest_receipt" to get the latest update in the subscription.
Below is the link for reference.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/in-app_purchase/validating_receipts_with_the_app_store#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010573-CH104-SW1
Related
I have an iOS app with different auto-renewal subscription possibilities, and I want to offer it's user the chance to earn a free month when they invite friends to the app.
I know how to handle the scenario where I'd give a free month to a user that's not already subscribed, but I'm wondering how to handle a user that's in the middle of a year-long paid subscription and should receive a free month..
EDIT
Make sure to read budiDino reply below, it seems this is now possible (Full disclosure, I haven't tried it myself but I did glance over the references linked).
OLD ANSWER
Ok, after some digging and asking around on Apple's forums I can confirm it's not possible.
The only way to achieve this is to give users a free month outside of Apple's subscription process...meaning users should turn off auto renewal to enjoy those free months.
Whether this is good or bad for your app depends, but it required that the user manually turns off auto-renewal while using the earner out of charge time, and then turn it on to get back into the normal auto-renewal flow handled by Apple.
You can maintain a value like additionalMonths on your server side.
So once his subscription period gets over, you can check for the value of additionalMonths and accordingly provide him subscription for those number of months.
1. Promotional Offers
This option allows you to add a free or discounted price for a period that you specify and it will be executed before the next payment cycle. You can use this feature starting with iOS 12.2.
Apple Documentation:
You can provide lapsed or current subscribers a limited-time offer of a discounted or free period of service for auto-renewable subscriptions on macOS, iOS, and tvOS.
Some useful links:
Implementing Promotional Offers in Your App
Set up promotional offers for auto-renewable subscriptions
Subscription Offers Best Practices video - WWDC 2019.
2. Offer Codes
Apple Documentation:
Offer codes can help you acquire, retain, and win back subscribers by providing a subscription at a discount or for free for a limited time.
Read more
3. "Extend a Subscription Renewal Date" endpoint:
Potentially simpler alternative that is not really suggested to use for this use-case. It has certain limitations though:
you can move the renewal date for a customer’s subscription up to 90 days into the future for each extension
you can extend the renewal date twice within a year (365 days) per customer
The following types of subscriptions aren’t eligible for renewal date extensions:
Subscriptions in a free offer period
Inactive subscriptions in a billing retry state
Subscriptions in a grace period state, with an expiration date in the past
Subscriptions that have already received two renewal date extensions within the last 365 days
Read more
I am developing he application which delivers audio clips as channel basis media over http streaming.
I am planing to use Auto-Renewable Subscriptions in the app and they are renewing on monhly basis as we are updating the contents(Audio clips) of the channel frequently.
I was going through the Apple policy for auto renwing subscription which is,
Definition
Auto-renewable subscriptions allow users to purchase dynamic content, such as magazine subscriptions, for a set duration of time. Subscriptions renew automatically unless the user opts out of the renewal. If the content you want offer doesn’t fit what’s outlined in the App Review Guidelines, consider offering the content through a non-renewing subscription.
Auto-renewable subscriptions can include an incentive to customers who share their contact information with you.
Review Guideline
11.15. Apps may only use auto-renewing subscriptions for periodicals (newspapers, magazines), business Apps (enterprise, productivity, professional creative, cloud storage), and media Apps (video, audio, voice), or the App will be rejected
Its very confusing which method to use in my app (Auto-Renewing or Non-Renewing)
hense there are different types of thoughts/information shared on the internet.
So, my question is which method is appropriate to my app?
Can my product will get approval or not if I stick to use Auto-Renewable Subscriptions?
Further, if theres any complete tutorial/sample app for auto-renewable subscriptions please share with me.
Thanks
You can use the Auto-Renewable Subscriptions if you are going to change the content on certain time period basis.
But if this thing is going to be stopped in future then this way will not work for you. Any time Apple reject your application if he get complaints from any user.
To avoid this I will suggest to go with the Non-Renewing Subscription in that you are the one who is going to manage everything by your own. Apple will only provide facility to do transaction only. Rest of the things like management of time period will be on your hands only. In this case your application will not be rejected by Apple anytime in future as well.
Refer this link for sample code which manages everything..
I'm working on an iOS app that will use Apple's in-app purchasing framework to let the user create auto-renewing subscriptions.
I want my server to check periodically that none of the subscriptions have expired. Apple's Receipt Validation Programming Guide describes a verifyReceipt web service that appears to validate a single receipt.
However, if I want to bulk-verify my entire database every few days, is there a better way to do that than a storm of individual verifyReceipt calls?
You don't need to need to bulk-verify your entire database. A subscription is valid for a fixed duration. If the user cancels their subscription then this takes effect at the next renewal period, not immediately.
Apple customer service can refund a subscription if a user has a case (wrong product purchase is one example they give) but this would be a pretty low figure - and your app should also check for a valid subscription when it starts.
So you should only need to verify subscriptions that are known to be expiring "today".
To my knowledge there's no way to send multiple receipts in one bulk request to validate them in the iTunes servers... You have to send one by one. (Multiple requests)...
I don't know if how you are planing to solve this is the best approach. Apple has extended documentation on how to handle auto renewal subscriptions, most of the times you check the validity of the subscription in the app itself.
Check the in-app purchase documentation. It's a very good read if you plan to depend on in-app subscriptions for your business model:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/technotes/tn2259/_index.html
My application is a web-service client. Service has a paid one month subscription. I want to implement subscription payment with IAP. At first I think to implement it as Auto-Renewable Subscription but after reading several posts about it drawbacks (rejecting from the App Store because the content is not a digital content or something like this) I decided to make Non-renewable subscription - but it also has some drawbacks (hard to sync it, optional registration). In on SO post - developer wrote that his app was rejected from the App Store when he made iCloud synchronization.
So can someone with good production experience wrote all pros and cons of both Auto-Renewable Subscriptions and Non-renewable? What should I choose for the one-month subscription to the medical web-service? Thanks
I do not have experience with auto-renewable subscriptions, but I do have extensive experience with IAP and non-renewable subscriptions. I use non-renewable subscriptions for a service that isn't a digital download.
Renewable Subscription Cons
User has to manually renew each month.
You will probably want to consider longer subscription periods. My app has 2 month and 1 year.
Renewable Subscription Pros
Users only pay for what they use. You can turn this to your advantage.
My own app saw a good increase in conversation rates when I explained that subscriptions do not auto renew and so they did not need to worry about canceling the subscription.
You can change the price!
Much more flexibility about how you can use it.
It has the standard popups during purchase. You will have a better conversation rate from the user hitting the buy button to them following through with the purchase.
Auto-Renewable Cons
LOTS of regulations about what you can do with it.
It is very possible that you won't be able to use auto-renewable in your situation.
Only the user can cancel their subscription. You can't add an easy way to do this into your app and keep your users happy.
The purchase process has extra steps that ask the user if they want to share their information with the publisher.
There is no API to know when the subscription will end.
You will have more negative reviews.
Auto-Renewable Pros
Users don't have to manually renew.
You have a more guaranteed income per month.
You will need to sync the subscriptions between devices. I use Parse.com as my backend. Basically, before making an IAP transaction as complete I push the data to parse. Users can then pull that data down onto their device to sync the subscriptions. Parse lets you save the transaction for users with and without accounts. So it has the benefit of giving you real time sales information.
EDIT: Auto Renewable Subscriptions will Change This Fall
Auto renewable subscriptions are drastically changing this Fall (2016). Pretty much every reason not to use auto renewable is going away. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/subscriptions/whats-new/
I had exactly the same experience with a auto-renewable subscription (an app that gives access to a specific information while subscription is active). The app was rejected because "app is not suited for auto-renewable subscriptions, and their recommendation was to switch to non-renewable subscription, and that is what I did.
After that, the app was rejected because there was no way to transfer the subscription between user's devices or after device reset. What I did, was to set up an user/password authentication system and allow up to 5 devices to connect at the same time with one user/password combination and to allow to extend the subscription from any of that user's devices. This solution was approved (back when iOS 5 was the latest version) and is still working.
In my app, I would like users to buy a subscription for Backup, Sync, and more.
so I found out that Apple offer two kinds of subscription IAP:
Non Renewable Subscription
Auto Renewable Subscription
which should I use, given that I don't have a server, and I rely on iCloud for the sync?
Auto-renewable in-app purchase are allowed only if your app provide new content each time (or often) the user pays. (like provide new magazine, video...)
If your purpose is to do a premium subscription which give access to so premium functions (so no logic of periodical new content), Apple will reject your app.
You will find much more explanations on the subject here: The limited world of auto-renewable subscriptions
I don't know much about this, but I think it is quite difficult to get Apple to accept an auto-renewable subscription for anything but Newsstand apps. For other use cases, I think they prefer you to adopt the non-renewable subscription.
You could also consider a one time payment to 'unlock' the feature, rather than a subscription, since you aren't actually paying any ongoing costs (e.g. storing data).