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Am I required to use Apple's In-App Purchase support if I wish to allow for subscriptions in my app? I'm currently working on an app that will be free to download and use. It will be ad-supported, but I will also offer a premium version of the service that won't display ads. Can I implement the subscription functionality myself within the app/backend service (Registration, credit card processing, etc.)? Or, am I required to use Apple's In-App Purchase support (thereby also giving up 30% of my subscription fee)

Shadowman
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  • You cannot use anything for in-app purchases other than Apple's IAP APIs (pun intended). Your app will almost certainly be rejected. –  Jan 07 '13 at 20:16
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's about Apple's rejection policies. See also: [Why we're not customer support for your favorite company](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/255745/why-were-not-customer-support-for-your-favorite-company). – Box Box Box Box May 05 '17 at 03:44

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Yes you are required. Apple will reject anything that tries to work around their 30% cut

Stephen
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Actually... there is a workaround where you may keep 100% of the revenue:

"If you would like to make a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) subscription price must be offered inside the app for users who wish to subscribe from within the app." Source: https://developer.apple.com/appstore/in-app-purchase/subscriptions.html

Not sure if this speaks directly to your question of making an app ad free, but it is possible to keep 100% of the revenue IF you make the same offer as an in app purchase.

Apple reversed these guidelines a while ago, allowing devs to mark up in-app purchases, but I am not sure if this is still relevant.

See: http://www.macworld.com/article/1160430/apple_removes_pricing_restrictions_in_app_subscriptions.html

and

http://help.rdio.com/customer/portal/questions/433219-price-discrepancy

y_s
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As it was already said you are required to use original Apple APIs. Moreover, according to Apple’s policy a developer can not choose which type of In-App-Purchases to use for their apps. You can read more about it in a dev's post

iOS In-App Purchase Overview: Our Hands-On Experience

In brief there are 3 types of subscriptions:

  • free -- are used by applications that offer issues for free
  • auto-renewable -- after the first successful purchase, they are prolonging themselves automatically if users’ credit card is valid and if he hasn't stopped it manually

  • non-renewing -- subscription is initiated by users, lasts a certain period of time and stops when the period ends, to subscribe again, a user should initiate the subscription manually.

    The use of auto-renewable subscription is limited only to Mass Media category applications. Free subscription can't be used for demo versions distributed with commercial purposes. And certainly, if an app violates Apple's requirements on In-App Purchase use and limitations, it will be banned from AppStore.

ice.cube
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