Guideline 3.1.1 - Business - Payments - In-App Purchase
We still noticed that your app includes or accesses paid digital content, services, or functionality by means other than in-app purchase, which is not appropriate for the App Store. Specifically:
The courses can be purchased in the app using payment mechanisms other than in-app purchase.
- Your app accesses digital content purchased outside the app, such as , but that content isn't available to purchase using in-app purchase.
- Your app includes intermediary currencies, such as points, coins, or gems, without using in-app purchase. Please note that the cost of the intermediary currency cannot be included in the purchase price of the app.
- Once the user's free trial has expired, the subscription is not available for purchase using in-app purchase and the user is directed to payment mechanisms other than in-app purchase.
- Your app includes or accesses paid services for buying and selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs), or related paid services, such as minting, listing, or transferring, with mechanisms other than in-app purchase.
Next Steps
The paid digital content, services, or subscriptions included in or accessed by your app must be available for purchase using in-app purchase.
Apps that offer paid digital services and content across multiple platforms may allow customers to access the content they acquired outside the app as long as it is also available for purchase using in-app purchase. See Guideline 3.1.3(b) Multiplatform Services for more information.
If you have any additional information to provide regarding the digital content and services in your app and how the guidelines apply to them, please reply to this message in App Store Connect and let us know. If there is information you'd like us to consider in our review of future submissions, please feel free to include it in the App Review Information section of App Store Connect.
Related
I've been looking for a way to add a monthly subscription with free trial to my product. I've noticed some apps, like Life360 (screenshot 1), do this through credit card billing rather than an iTunes account. I've searched all through the developer documentation and cannot find an API to allow a user to enter a credit card outside their iTunes account.
Is there an API for this?
You have to go through Apple for all credit card transactions if you want to be accepted in the App Store.
According to the App Store Review Guidelines, 11.2:
Apps utilizing a system other than the In-App Purchase API (IAP) to
purchase content, functionality, or services in an App will be
rejected
And 11.3:
Apps using IAP to purchase physical goods or goods and services used
outside of the App will be rejected
So, yes, so-and-so does it, but you aren't so-and-so, so you probably will be rejected for doing it.
Apple frowns on this, in general, for non-physical merchandise. Chances are good your app will be rejected (and Life 360 might have just slipped through - it happens!)
There's definitely not a credit card API built into iOS. You'd need to use a third-party for your payment processing. Stripe is a popular one, and has a page on iOS integration: https://stripe.com/docs/mobile/ios
There isn't a built in API for this. You need to use a third party like Stripe. However by having a subscription system that does not go through the appstore you will likely be rejected.
Most apps that use content (news, magazines) will need to use in app purchases. Apps that provide a service such as insurance etc can usually be added by working with someone from Apple in order to get it into the app store such as Uber.
I want to make an app that lets a vendor sell gift cards through the app to the vendor's store. Does anyone know which PayPal SDK I would use?
I'm hoping for guidance based on experience here, which is easiest to work with and simplest.
Also does anyone know if there's a paypal alternative with an SDK?
Thanks!
Following on from my comment above, the rules are not clear and are therefore open to interpretation (and Apple's interpretation always supersedes anyone else's)
11.2 Apps utilizing a system other than the In App Purchase API (IAP) to purchase content, functionality, or services in an app will be rejected
A gift card could be interpreted as a service, PayPal interpreted as a system other than IAP
11.3 Apps using IAP to purchase physical goods or goods and services used outside of the application will be rejected
Therefore you can't use IAP's to purchase your gift cards
11.13 Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, such as a “buy” button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected
Here external mechanism could easily refer to alternate payment providers, so that rules out using PayPal.
As you mention giftcards, the following clause may also be relevant as a gift card could be interpreted as a credit or even a virtual currency
11.4 Apps that use IAP to purchase credits or other currencies must consume those credits within the application
We are planning a new application development for iPhone and Android devices. The application would be published in both markets (Android Market and Apple's App Store) and its download would be free.
Nevertheless, the application would have some items that can be purchased by the user. The easiest way would be to integrate each version with its corresponding billing system: Android In-App Billing and the Apple iTunes Billing System.
Is there a way for avoiding the 30% transaction fee from the billing systems? Can a developer use a custom in-app billing system for its application? Is there a disclaimer policy for Android or iPhone when using other in-app bill systems for avoiding their transaction fees? What are the options a developer has for providing an in-app item purchase within his application?
Many thanks!
We've developed several applications that transport users to a web page payment portal contained within the application.
Apple have seemed fine with this approach, in one particular application we had implemented both In-App purchasing and a custom payment portal - they asked us to remove In-App purchasing as the app was selling deal/vouchers and they classed this as virtual product.... they didn't reject anything about our custom payment portal.
Potentially they could pull all apps that do this at any point they feel like it, although I don't see this as a likely scenario.
Since both Android Market and Apple's App Store terms of service prohibit what you're asking for, the answer is a simple: no, there is no way to avoid the transaction fees (and still remain within the terms of service).
You're also asking about a disclaimer policy -- if you mean for your product, you should disclaim to your users that your app could get removed from its respective market at any time, without any notice (if you decide to implement billing that subverts the market).
We want to sell digital content through subscription model in our app. Is it possible to support a subscription bundle? Let's say content in question is magazine subscription for $0.99 a month. Is it possible to support a bundle of subscription such that user can subscribe to any three magazine by buying a bundle for let's say $1.99? Or is it possible to support eat-all-you-can model - $3.99 for subscribing to all magazines in our app?
According to the official documents from Apple, yes you can. What you need to do is design your iAP store and items according to Apple's requirements.
Getting Started with In App Purchase
on iPhone OS (Version 2.0)
...
Subscriptions
Subscriptions and subscription
renewals to content or services can be
offered to customers for purchase. You
can offer customers the opportunity to
renew their content or service
subscriptions using In App Purchase,
but be sure to define a reasonable
renewal frequency to avoid bothering
users with unwelcome reminders. Be
aware that you are responsible for
both tracking subscription expirations
and for renewal billing; the App Store
does not monitor subscription duration
and does not offer an automatic
billing mechanism. Be sure to indicate
when an item is a subscription when
entering its product information into
iTunes Connect.
Both of these features are supported, they are called consumable and non-consumable in-app purchases.
I'd like to sell products through my application (insurance policies) and I don't want to use the in-app purchase mechanism as it would mean sharing 30% of the product price. Instead I would like to provide the user with a page to enter his/her credit card details and perform the credit clearing through my own self-developed secured services.
My question: is selling products which are not content or features, using my own purchasing system, prohibited by Apple or appstore policy?
Obviously, I am not a lawyer, but I think you’ll be OK. Here’s my interpretation of the three relevant rules from the developer guidelines (emphasis mine):
11.1 Apps that unlock or enable additional features or functionality with mechanisms other than the App Store will be rejected.
11.2 Apps utilizing a system other than the In App Purchase API (IAP) to purchase content, functionality, or services in an app will be rejected.
11.3 Apps using IAP to purchase physical goods or goods and services used outside of the application will be rejected.
The first rule prohibits you from unlocking anything inside of your app with something other than the App Store. This would prevent you from, say, making a game that downloads new levels from your server based on your membership to a website.
The second rule prohibits you from, say, making a game and enabling PayPal in it to unlock more levels. Apple wants you to use in-app purchase for that.
The third rule—and this is where it gets interesting—prohibits you from using in-app purchase in an application to buy “physical goods” or “goods and services used outside of the application.” Nowhere does it say, however, that you can’t use other purchasing systems.
With that third rule, I think what Apple is saying is this: anything that runs on the iPhone must be purchased through the App Store, and everything purchased in the App Store must run on iOS. For something like insurance, which isn’t new functionality in the app, I think you’ll be OK. This is absolutely worth an e-mail to Apple’s technical support staff, but if you look at Amazon’s app, you can purchase physical goods using Amazon’s checkout system.
Quoting from Apple's Guidelines - 11.3 Apps using IAP to purchase physical goods or goods and services used outside of the application will be rejected.
So, you should be fine. This is validated by apps that are already in the Apple app store, such as Groupon, Fandango, Chegg and others that charge users credit cards for physical goods or goods consumed outside of the app without passing the transaction through Apple.
It would be great feedback for everyone to hear whether you had any difficulties with Apple when publishing your app or not.
11.10
Insurance applications must be free, in legal-compliance in the regions distributed, and cannot use IAP
https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html
Also read: http://www.quora.com/How-do-eBay-and-Groupon-get-around-Apples-in-app-purchase-system-despite-being-native-apps
In general you can sell physical products via an app. You cannot however use the InAppPurchase mechanism for this, but are required to use your own payment mechanism.
Ruling on this seems somewhat unclear from the guidelines. Would be interestig to hear whether your app got accepted.
We just recently submitted an app that featured in-app purchase of non-digital goods and everything went through without issue. Take a look at the following to get more insight:
Does Apple test purchase of physical goods during their app approval process?