Suggesting Subscriptions
Suggest a seamless practice for digital subscriptions in your apps. In-app purchase APIs provide a ordinary, powerful way to implement subscriptions in apps on all Apple platforms and in all App Store categories.
About Auto-Renewable Subscriptions
Auto-renewable subscriptions give users access to content or services from within your app on an ongoing basis. At the end of each subscription duration, the subscription will automatically renew until a user chooses to cancel it.
Auto-renewable subscriptions provide a ordinary way to suggest free trials to users. When users sign up for a subscription with a free trial, their subscription commences instantaneously but they won’t be billed until the free trial period is over. You can select one of the following durations for a free trial: three days, one week, two weeks, one month, two months, three months, six months, or one year.
85% Revenue After One Year
The revenue structure for auto-renewable subscriptions differs from other business models on the App Store. Within a subscriber’s very first year of an auto-renewable subscription, you receive the traditional 70% of the subscription price at each billing cycle, minus applicable taxes. After a subscriber accumulates one year of paid service, your revenue increases to 85% of the subscription price, minus applicable taxes.
Days of paid service proceed to accumulate when users upgrade, downgrade, or crossgrade within a subscription group. Even if a user cancels and resubscribes within sixty days, they will still accumulate days of service from the point where they lapsed. If they resubscribe after the 60-day grace period completes, their days of paid service starts over, and you receive 70% of the subscription price until one year of accumulated service passes. Each time a user cancels, a fresh grace period starts.
How It Works
- Auto-renewable subscriptions on all Apple platforms are eligible.
- Subscribers must accumulate one year of paid service.
- Excludes free trials, bonus periods, and 60-day grace periods.
- Moves inbetween subscriptions in the same subscription group do not affect the 85% revenue after one year.
- A stir to a subscription in a different subscription group resets the days of service, and you will receive 70% of the purchase price until one year of accumulated service passes.
Subscription Groups and Service Levels
A subscription group is a set of in-app purchases that you can create to provide users with a range of content offerings, service levels, or durations to best meet their needs.
Subscriptions within a subscription group are mutually special, meaning that users are only able to subscribe to one option within a group at a time. If you want users to be able to purchase more than one subscription at a time, you can put these in-app purchases in different subscription groups.
User Options
Users can manage their subscriptions in their account settings on the App Store. For each subscription they will see all the renewal options the subscription group offers. They can lightly budge inbetween service levels and choose to upgrade, downgrade, or crossgrade as often as they like.
For each in-app purchase, create a user friendly, self-explanatory name that differentiates it from other options within the subscription group. Ensure that you use distinct terms to describe the app name, the subscription group name, and the subscription in-app purchase name to avoid repetitive wording. Where possible, keep your subscription offerings ordinary so that users can make a choice lightly.
Ranking In-App Purchases
Within each subscription group, you can determine the upgrade, downgrade, and crossgrade path by ranking each in-app purchase. Your subscription levels should be ranked in descending order, commencing with the one that offers the highest level of service. For more details on how to use iTunes Connect to rank your subscription offerings, observe this demo from the WWDC session Introducing Expanded Subscriptions in iTunes Connect.
Crossgrade
Crossgrades refers to a user moving to another identically ranked auto-renewable subscription in the same subscription group.
When Service Level Switches Go Into Effect
- Upgrades of any duration
- Crossgrades with the same duration
At Next Renewal Date
- Downgrades of any duration
- Crossgrades with different durations
Suggesting Subscriptions to Numerous Apps
You can suggest auto-renewable subscriptions to access numerous apps in your portfolio. Each app must be approved to use auto-renewable in-app purchases and must be published under the same developer name on the App Store.
In iTunes Connect, you’ll need to set up separate and equivalent auto-renewable in-app purchases in each app suggested in the multi-app subscription so that users can subscribe from any app. To avoid users paying numerous times for the same suggesting, you are responsible for verifying that they are subscribers in one of the apps before displaying any subscription options. To do this, consider maintaining an account management system in which users create an account with your business to sign in to each app.
Subscriptions Purchased Outside of an App
Subscribers who were acquired outside of your app can read or play content through the app. However, you may not provide outer links in your app that permit users to purchase subscriptions outside of the app.
Territory Pricing and Expanded Price Tiers
Apps with auto-renewable subscriptions can suggest territory-specific prices and have access to two hundred price points across all currencies. You can set the prices you think are suitable for subscribers in different markets, and you have the plasticity to price your subscriptions at parity if they’re available elsewhere. The iTunes Connect pricing instrument can help you manage pricing based on current exchange rates. If there is a tax switch or currency adjustment in a particular region, the price of subscriptions will generally not be affected unless you determine to pass the switch on to your users.
Any time you increase pricing for existing subscribers, they will have the chance to agree to the increase, which may result in lost subscribers if they do not accept the switch. Before you make any pricing decisions, research your target market’s pricing expectations and weigh the potential influence of raising the price against retaining existing subscribers.
If you want to switch the price of a subscription in a specific market, it’s significant to understand which markets are tax inclusive before you take activity. For example, if you determine to lower the subscription price for users in Germany, the revenue you’ll receive will be the purchase price minus the European Union’s value added tax (VAT) and minus Apple’s commission. If you use the default pricing in the iTunes Connect pricing contraption, tax rates are already considered for you. For more information, review Schedule two of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement, which describes territories that have different tax treatments.
Subscription Price Tiers
Look up territory-specific price tiers available for auto-renewable subscriptions. View now
Keep Subscribers at Their Existing Price
Apps using the auto-renewable subscription model can keep active subscribers at their existing price while enhancing the price for fresh users. You can have an unlimited number of subscribers preserved at their existing price.
When users upgrade, downgrade, or crossgrade within a subscription group, they will pay the current price of the fresh subscription and will not keep their existing price.
If you have several cohorts of subscribers at different prices and you want to budge all subscribers to the current price, embark from the top down and increase the price for users paying closest to the current price very first, then the next closest, and so on. This method ensures that users are not prompted with numerous notices to accept higher prices.
It’s significant to note that this feature can’t be used to suggest time-based introductory pricing. For example, you can’t suggest a three-month subscription at an introductory price of $Two.99 and then raise the price to $Three.99 because it will raise the price for all users at $Two.99 regardless of how long they have been at this price. Suggesting free trials or a freemium practice are alternative ways to introduce fresh users to the subscriptions available in your app.