When does Apple charge its $99 Developer Program fee? - ios

Do they charge annually starting from the day I first pay, or do I need to pay once every January of every year - meaning if I register in December I need to pay $200 in the space of two months?

You will be required to pay annual fee according to apple's custom date for you in developer website which means it counts on basis of duration (1 year). The later one doesn't make sense and pretty much discouraging user to register at later period of year. Hope this helps
P/s: Also, you can also let it expire and renew whenever you want. Your apps and balance will remain in apple server. Refer the link for further details
https://developer.apple.com/support/renewal/

Related

App Store Connect does not show all sales - why?

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.

Does free trial achievable via introductory price in IAP ?(IOS)

Summing up my R&D free trial via introductory price only meant to be free for specific time after customer bought subscription.
I want that feature to be initially free for a month and then user buy the subscription.
How can I achieve this ?Is it achievable via Introductory price?
Yes It is achievable by introductory price. You can choose free trial
duration for a month inside introductory price's.
With Free trial, New subscribers access content for free for a
specified duration(say month). Their subscription begins immediately but theywon’t be billed until the free trial period is over.
Check it out for more details : docs
If you are asking that, if user can get free month trial subscription without going for IAP subscription purchase. You need to set logic for that by your own, that after user has installed your app, he/she should be able to use services for a month and after a month all those services should get blocked. and it will be again enabled only after user purchase subscription.

Is it possible to deduct amount for monthly app uses through In-App purchase from user/customer?

I have one iOS app and want to deduct some amount through In-App purchase for every month as a maintenance charges. Example: I want to give my app as a free trail for first one month and after that I want to deduct $2 for every month as a monthly maintenance charges. Is it possible through In-App Purchase? Please advice me. Thanks in advance.
I don't believe that Apple would allow you a monthly maintenance charges just for using App. Subscription means you would unlock some content (which is paid), until user is in subscription period.
Still, just put a logic to detect whether user has been using your App since a month. You can do this by storing date in defaults. If it is more than one month, present user a subscription page with pricing.
Specify everything in details in review notes to make App reviewer understand well. If they don't have any issue with that, you will be done.

How to grant free months to an auto-renewal subscription (iOS)?

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

Will I get iAd payments at all and when?

I have an app on the app store that has been out for a few months with iAd banners and I get a few dollars every month ( not very much ) and I heard that you need a minimum of revenue to actually get paid. if this is true, how much do I need? do they cumulative every month or do I need that minimum every month and therefore won't get any of the money I earned these past few months? thanks for your answers!
Your revenue is cumulative. Check this FAQ entry for the payment schedule and minimums.
When will I be paid? Payments are made within 45 days of the last
day of the month in which app purchases were made. To receive payment,
you must have provided all required banking and tax information and
documentation, as well as meeting the minimum payment threshold.
If your bank and bank account currency is listed in this table, you
must exceed a minimum payment threshold of $10 USD. All other bank
countries and bank account currencies must exceed a minimum payment
threshold of $150 USD.

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