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We are developing an app in which some verified users can sell their content by subscriptions.

Content is digital content consisting of videos, photos and tips.

We would like to offer paid content with monthly subscription. I researched some apps and usually you have the auto-renewable subscription for all paid content.

However our client would like to offer separate subscription for every user offering their paid content.

This means that every content consumer (user) will be able to have unlimited number of concurrent subscription as they would be able to subscribe to any content provider they want.

My questions:

  1. Does content providers' content I described qualify for subscription digital content type? Because the content provider is the one that creates it, not us. Also we can't guarantee any kind of periodical release of the new content.
  2. Won't be non-consumable product better choice for Apple? I researched that we should use separate subscription group for every content provider, so user could be subscribed to multiple users at once. However I did not find similar model in other apps. Won't apple see it as a misuse of in-app type and require us to use non-consumable product for example? source Because some time ago we misunderstood the guidelines and used wrong product type and it was real pain to redo the whole flow to have the app released. Also I did not get apple's validation for our in-app design as they cannot consult such thing unless the app is in review.

Other option we're currently researching: We are thinking about the number of tiers to allow user to access paid content of specific number of users:

  • $x for accessing the content of 1 chosen providers
  • $x for accessing content of 5 chosen providers
  • $x ....
  • $x for accessing all paid content

All the subscriptions would be in the same group and every subscription would have different level. When user purchases the product, they have an option to choose which paid contents to access (no switching / or switching every month).

Final question:

  1. Would this option be acceptable for apple? I think it's risky and might be a pain to explain user all the conditions. However user would not have to manage dozens subscriptions and have just one. Also we would not have to manually create subscription product for every content provider.
CattDamon
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  • two years there is still no answer to this question anywhere, how did you solve your problem? – EmreAkkoc Feb 26 '21 at 22:22
  • @EmreAkkoc Hello, in the end, after many conversations with our iOS department colleagues, we implemented the "Tier" model. We had 3 different subscription tiers (mentioned in the question) with Tier 1 being the cheepest with the smallest amount of content providers you can follow and Tier 3 being the most expensive provided the biggest number of providers. This added another set of rules to the subscribing. For example, you could only switch x content providers in your subscription per month, etc. . Unfortunately, app never got released due to issues not related to in-app purchases. – CattDamon Mar 07 '21 at 11:19
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    Hello, wow it sounds extremely hard to scale (to pay back to creators), I think I will go with Stripe Connect via web app and won't provide subscription option in the app as in Spotify and Netflix. Only such good example is Onlyfans (not meaning content wise) but they don't have native apps at all, so it's very hard to model it from somewhere. Thank you for the reply. – EmreAkkoc Mar 07 '21 at 12:00
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    Yep, that honestly sounds like the best option. If we would have a web app I would definitely try to with subscriptions on web. – CattDamon Mar 07 '21 at 17:16
  • Hi @CattDamon Did you ultimately end up using auto-renewing subscriptions and created 3 different "Subscription Groups" for the 3 different tiers? Or did you use a consumable in-app purchase for each subscription tier? Did the app at least go into review and did Apple approve it with the in-app purchases you implemented? Would really appreciate if you can reply :) Thanks! – Areeb Apr 08 '21 at 10:16
  • Hey @Areeb, I believe I answered everything in the second comment. – CattDamon Apr 09 '21 at 07:48
  • I found the answer to my question: https://help.apple.com/app-store-connect/#/dev7f2d6b652 Here Apple clearly says "Subscriptions within a subscription group are mutually exclusive, meaning that users are only able to subscribe to one option within a group at a time. If you want users to be able to purchase more than one subscription at a time, you can put these in-app purchases in different subscription groups." So, it looks like end-users may purchase and have multiple active running subscriptions – Areeb Jun 15 '21 at 10:16

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