I am new to subscriptions. I came across a requirement where i need to sell two different products inside my iOS app.
So going with the Subscription model, can we have have two different
types of subscriptions with different pricing in iOS? So One
subscription might cost him 2.99$ and another subscription might
cost him 1.99$.
Can the user alter his subscription even before his subscription ends?
Is it possible to implement the subscriptions on a quarterly basis instead of monthly or yearly?
Is this possible to implement in iOS? Please guide me.
After a lot of research and reading,I got to know the answer. Below are my answers.
Yes, It is possible to have different subscriptions. If you want
to support two subscriptions at a time, we need to add the
subscriptions in two different subscription groups in iTunes
Connect.
Yes, The user can downgrade or upgrade his subscriptions
Yes, It is possible to implement subscriptions on a quarterly basis.
You have options to configure Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly and
Annual subscriptions in iTunes Connect.
Hope this helps for anyone trying to implement the subscriptions for the first time.
Related
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
I have an app in the Apple app-store where some extra features are offered through a couple of one time in-app purchases. I want to transfer that to a subscription model. To make it more acceptable for those who already bought the old IAP I want to give them the first year free. However, I have problems implementing this.
Alternative 1:
Create an "Introductory offer" (one year free) for the new subscribed IAP. But I can't see a way to control who gets that offer, which means all new buyers will benefit from it.
Alternative 2:
Create a "Promotional offer". But that is only meant for getting old subscribers back. So there is no way for a new buyer to use that offer (I think).
Alternative 3:
Create two completely different IAP, one with an introductory offer and one without. That would work, but is a clunky solution that I want to avoid.
Are there any other alternatives?
You are not allowed to change someone who bought an IAP with no expiry date to a subscription. Doing this will likely lead to Apple intervening and unlisting your app.
They bought your IAP with the understanding it was an eternal licence. You can only bill NEW customers on a subscription.
You’ll need to keep record of those who purchased the IAP and new customers who purchase a subscription.
Our app was rejected in App Store because we were using 3rd party solution for subscription and was decided to use In-App Purchases ( Auto-Renewable Subscriptions). I went through several tutorials and it seems that the subscription has to be created in App Store Connect and only then it will be available to use in app and that's the problem for us.
Our app is something like news app where user can subscribe to some author. List of authors comes from server therefore hardcode every subscription for each author is not the way to go.
So, Is that possible to somehow implement what I want with In-App Purchases? Thanks.
There is no option to create subscription dynamically. Your case is a draw back of iOS subscription platform. I have pointed out this problem to Apple subscription team but they were not ready to accept this and forced us to implement in-app subscription, so we had to restrict the number of subscription in app.
Only possible option is to create a number of subscription groups, lets say 10 groups representing each author.
authorSusbcription1,authorSusbcription2,...authorSusbcription10
I know it's not a viable solution since the number of authors is indefinite. But we don't have any option as of now. You can restrict 10 authors subscription in the app and then prompt users to buy from website if it's exceeds 10.You can show some alert that doesn't violate the in-app rule. For example, "Further subscription is not available in this app" instead of mentioning about your website. Track this user and use an API to send an email to this user asking to subscribe via website.
Unless Apple fix this drawback, we have no other options..!
Dynamic Auto-Renewable Subscriptions creation (and dynamic in-app purchase creation in general) is not possible. Alternatives would be to sell credits to authors (but this is non-auto renewable). Another possibility is to sell tiers of subscriptions that grant access to a number of authors.
I want to A/B test free trial for auto-renewal subscription. How can I do that?
I can A/B test the app UI describing subscription, but iOS system modal screen will display free trial anyway if it is enabled in appstore connect.
The other option I think of is creating another one similar subscription in appstore connect with free trial and A/B test it with the existing one. But I doubt it will pass review. And it will be a pain to support two subscriptions from now on.
Any ideas how to perform such a test?
To A/B test a free trial you should create two different subscriptions that are part of the same Subscription Group. This will ensure that a user can only be subscribed to one at a time. Apple allows this and you won't have any trouble passing review due to having multiple subscription offerings - it's a fairly common practice across subscription apps.
As far as supporting two subscriptions - if they unlock the same content in your app it shouldn't be any more work than supporting a single subscription. The only difference will be they'll have different product_ids.
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.