How in-app billing works
Products and prices are defined in the store's console. When a viewer buys, the store takes payment and gives the app a signed receipt. The service validates the receipt with the store and grants access.
For subscriptions, the store charges each renewal itself and sends the service a notification when a subscription renews, lapses, is refunded or is cancelled.
What the store controls
- The checkout screen and the payment methods offered
- Renewal dates, retries of failed payments and grace periods
- Refunds, which the customer requests from the store
- Cancellation, done in the store's subscription settings
- Price points available in each country
Running store and web billing together
A service usually has subscribers from several sources: its website, Apple, Google and perhaps a TV store. The account system must treat all of them as one kind of entitlement, so a viewer who subscribed on an iPhone can watch on the web and on a television.
Reporting needs the same care. Revenue from stores arrives net of commission and on the store's payout schedule, so combine it with web revenue before reading totals.
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