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Is it possible to have a tiered subscription model in android that works across apps? I have 3 apps A,B and C which all require a subscription in order to be used. If I have a subscription to A, I can use A but not B or C . If I have a subscription to B, I can use B and A but not C. And If I have a subscription to C I can use all the apps. In other words the levels are C>B>A.

I have tried using the android billing library to access subscriptions of the A app from the B app but without success.

The in app subscriptions documentation says :

You can implement your own solution for sharing subscriptions across as many different apps or products as you want. For example, you could sell a subscription that gives a subscriber access to an entire collection of apps, games, or other content for a monthly or annual fee. To implement this solution, you could add your own business logic to your app to determine whether the user has already purchased a given subscription and if so, allow access to your content.

Is it possible to set this up using only the android in-app billing API from inside the apps? Has this been set up before using Google Play to handle purchases and a backend to keep track of subscriptions? The main question is: Is it possible to access information from one app about a subscription on another app that I manage?

Phantômaxx
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simple_code
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    Please clarify if you have your own server handling billing/in-app purchases or you are trying to do this without. – Morrison Chang Feb 24 '18 at 16:47
  • I was trying to do it without the backend, but I'm fairly sure it can only be done with the backend: When a user has bought a subscription, the receipt/information should be sent to the backend and distributed to the other apps as required. – simple_code Feb 26 '18 at 05:13

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One option would have to have each app provide a Content Provider where each app would look for the other apps and confirm subscription state.

Also see: How to restrict content provider data across applications

A downside is that each app would need to be installed on device. If it was server based, someone could buy subscription to app C on one device and with the same subscriber identity have app B and app A on a different device.

Morrison Chang
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  • Thanks for the answer @Morrison Chang. I have decided the tiered subscription is too difficult to implement in the time I have. I may update this question with the solution I use in the future. – simple_code Feb 26 '18 at 09:39