A primer and key pain points of implementing auto-renewing subscriptions on the App Store. Presentation for Toronto Area Cocoa and Web Objects (TACOW) meetup.

1. App Store Subscriptions
Condensed Edition
Mark Pavlidis
mark@pavlidis.ca
mark@groksoftware.net
@mhp
TACOW Presentation
2019-05-14

2. Agenda
Why: Choose a Subscription Business Model?
Who: Am I To Know?
What: You need to know to get started?
How: Do you avoid some pain points?
Where: Are we having beers?

3. Why Choose Subscriptions?
• Fastest growing business model
on the App Store
• Over a 80% of all apps are free,
up from 67% in 2014
• Generated $10B in revenue in
2017, estimated $75B in 2022
App Store Revenue (%)
0
20
40
60
80
100
2010 2012 2015 2018
Paid Free+IAP Free+Subscrption

4. Why Choose Subscriptions?

5. Why Choose Subscriptions?

6. Why Choose Subscriptions?
PAID SUBSCRIPTION
Periodic impulse in revenue
Slow build to the sum of
the impulses every 3-4
months recurring
Launch
Apple Design Award
App Store Feature

7. Why Choose Subscriptions?
• Recurring Revenue
• Higher price points and fewer customers
• “Build meaningful relationships” with good customers
• Don’t hold back big features for new major versions
• Apple said so
• Everybody is doing it

8. Why Choose Subscriptions?
Are subscriptions right for me?
• Offering ongoing value
• Is the model right for the potential customers
• Do you have ongoing infrastructure costs
Popular Categories:
• Content, Utilities, Dating, Productivity, Creative

9. Who Am I To Know?
• First implemented Non-Renewing Subscriptions in 2011

11. Who Am I To Know?
• First implemented Non-Renewable Subscriptions in 2011
• Auto-renewing plans for Flixel hosting service in 2014
• Included the app unlock in 2015 before it was “legal”
• Worked around a number of limitations that have since been
added to the App Store (i.e., price changes)
• Lucky for you there are still lots of limitations and workarounds

12. What Are The Basics
• Create your Auto-renewing plans in App Store Connect
• Initiate StoreKit at launch and fetch products
• Show localized plans in-app with the conspicuous disclaimer
• ALWAYS END YOUR TRANSACTIONS
• Provide a mechanism to restore subscription and non-
consumable IAPs

13. Create Auto-Renewing IAP

14. Create Auto-Renewing IAP

15. Create Subscription Group

16. Subscription Groups
• Made up of subscriptions of different levels and durations
• Helps ensure multiple subscriptions are not active
• Rank the subscriptions in descending order by most access
• Ranking defines rules for upgrade, crossgrade, downgrade

17. Subscription Groups

18. Initiate StoreKit
func application(_ application: UIApplication,
didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions:
[UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
PurchaseController.shared.setup()
return true
}

19. Initiate StoreKit
class PurchaseController: NSObject {
func setup() {
// Register Observer
SKPaymentQueue.default().add(self)
}
func paymentQueue(_ queue: SKPaymentQueue, updatedTransactions
transactions: [SKPaymentTransaction]) {
//Handle transaction states here.
}
}

20. Fetch Products
func setup() {
// Register Observer
SKPaymentQueue.default().add(self)
// Register for product refresh
refreshObserver =
NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(forName:
UIApplication.didBecomeActiveNotification, object: nil,
queue: .main) { [weak self] note in
self?.fetchProducts()
}
}

21. Fetch Products
func fetchProducts() {
guard productsRequest == nil else { return }
//
productsRequest = SKProductsRequest(productIdentifiers:
productIdentifiers)
productsRequest?.delegate = self
productsRequest?.start()
}
}
extension PurchaseController: SKProductsRequestDelegate {
func productsRequest(_ request: SKProductsRequest, didReceive
response: SKProductsResponse) {
products = response.products
}
}

22. Localized Pricing
open class SKProduct : NSObject {
@available(iOS 3.0, *)
open var localizedDescription: String { get }
@available(iOS 3.0, *)
open var localizedTitle: String { get }
@available(iOS 3.0, *)
open var price: NSDecimalNumber { get }
@available(iOS 3.0, *)
open var priceLocale: Locale { get }

23. Localized Pricing
extension SKProduct {
/// - returns: The cost of the product formatted in the local
currency.
var regularPrice: String? {
let formatter = NumberFormatter()
formatter.numberStyle = .currency
formatter.locale = self.priceLocale
return formatter.string(from: self.price)
}
}

24. Display Localized Products

25. Conspicuous Disclaimer

26. Start Purchase
func purchase(_ product: SKProduct) {
let payment = SKPayment(product: product)
SKPaymentQueue.default().add(payment)
}

27. Purchase Completes
• Once the transaction state changes to .purchased you can
store the subscription transaction to unlock
• What about if a renewal occurs?
• What if the user deletes the app?
• What if you have more than one app or a web service?
• Can use the receipt instead of restoring the transactions

28. Complete Transactions
• Once verified on-device or sent the receipt to your server call
SKPaymentQueue.default().finishTransaction(_:)
• If you don’t StoreKit will keep posting the transaction
• Apple is more likely to refund the transaction if you don’t

29. let receiptURL = Bundle.main.appStoreReceiptURL
• Receipt is in PKCS Cryptographic Container & ASN.1 encoded
• Need to build a static OpenSSL, asn1c, etc to verify it
• Bundle Apple Root CA Certificate
• Not provided by Apple on purpose — no single point of failure
On-Device Receipt Validation

30. Server Side Receipt Validation
• If you can, have your server manage receipt verification
• Send the BASE64 binary encoded receipt data and store it
• Server sends it to Apple server that responds with JSON
payload of the receipt and a latest version of receipt data
• JSON includes additional information about subscription state

31. Server Side Receipt Validation
• If you have multiple apps/platforms you must use this method
• App Transport Security is required
• Different endpoints for Production and Sandbox environments
https://buy.itunes.apple.com/verifyReceipt
https://sandbox.itunes.apple.com/verifyReceipt
• Don’t call from the device
• Status code to indicate if you should use the other environment

32. Additional Receipt Fields
• auto_renew_status indicates if the customer has cancelled
• auto_renew_product_id renewal product could be different
• price_consent_status when you change the price
• is_in_billing_retry_period indicate past due to user
• expiration_intent is voluntary, billing, price increase, etc.
• original_transaction_id your primary key to the subscription

33. JSON Receipt Demo

34. Managing Server-to-Server
• Your server can receive push subscription status updates
• General App Information > Subscription Status URL
• Only one endpoint, so you have to forward sandbox requests
• Different data structure containing partial change data
• Delivery is not guaranteed
• Poll all receipts daily to ensure auto-renewal and cancelations are
synchronized

35. Ways to Increase Conversions
• Promoted In-App Purchases
• Auto-renewing Subscription Offers
• Introductory Offers
• NEW: Promotional Offers
• Handling Past Due user experience

36. Promoted IAPs
• Can promote up to 20 IAPs
• Give customers browsing the App Store a one-tap buy button
• Needs unique images
• Shows up in search results (n.b., ASO marketers)
• Another reason you need to initialize StoreKit at launch

37. Promoted IAPs
func paymentQueue(_ queue: SKPaymentQueue, shouldAddStorePayment
payment: SKPayment, for product: SKProduct) -> Bool
• Always return false now or risk rejection
• Hold on to the SKPayment
• Display Product, PRICE, and Conspicuous Disclaimer
• Have the user sign-in/up if necessary
• Then add the payment to the payment queue

39. Subscription Offers
Introductory Offers
• Free Trial, Pay as you go, Pay up front
• Unique by (Territory, Plan)
• Displayed on Promoted IAP on the App Store
• SKProduct.introductoryPrice

40. Subscription Offers

41. Subscription Offers
Promotional Offers
• Up to 10 offers per plan to existing or churned subscribers
• You decide which are shown
• Not displayed on the App Store — avoid IAP pollution
• Requires a server to determine eligibility & generate signature
• SKProduct.discounts

42. Past Due User Experience
• On-device or before last year you don’t know user is past due
• Apple used to cancel after 24 hours, now it is 60 days
• Up to you how to limit access
• Clearly inform the user that they are past due
• Show a button that opens
https://apps.apple.com/account/billing

43. How Do You Avoid Some Pain
• Cancelled is not what you think it means
• Converting a Paid app to Free+Subscription
• New App Auto-Renewing Subscription Propagation
• Have I mentioned the Conspicuous Disclaimer?

44. What “Cancelled” Means
• Another reason to poll nightly is that a transaction in the receipt
can change
• cancellation_date_ms, cancellation_reason
• Means refunded and you should remove access immediately

45. REALLY ?

46. How To Know If Churned
• On-device: if the latest transaction in the receipt end date is in
the past now
• Server-side : check pending_renewal_info for
expiration_intent

47. Converting Paid to Subscription

48. Converting Paid to Subscription
Sandbox
Prod iOS
Prod macOS

49. REALLY ?

50. New App with Subscriptions
• Turns out that auto-renewing subscriptions aren’t added to the
production environment until the app is live
• Most of the time this propagates to all stores quickly
• But…

51. New App with Subscriptions
Activation of the In-App Purchase identifiers may lag up to 48
hours following the activation of the application

52. REALLY ?

53. Conspicuous Disclaimer

54. Summary
Why: Choose a Subscription Business Model?
Who: Am I To Know?
What: You need to know to get started?
How: Do you avoid some pain points?

55. Available for consulting after
WWDC

56. References
• Auto-renewable Subscriptions
• In-App Purchase and Subscriptions
• Implementing Introductory Offers in Your App
• Implementing Subscription Offers
• IAP Propagation Critical Bug “Tech Note”

57. App Store Subscriptions
Condensed Edition
Mark Pavlidis
mark@pavlidis.ca
mark@groksoftware.net
@mhp
TACOW Presentation
2019-05-14