iOS recurring subscription policy for service, not content

Question

Apologies in advance for a policy, rather than a programming question, but given the paucity of information available online I hope I can be forgiven for asking it here.

I would like to use the new recurring subscriptions from Apple in an iOS app. I have coded payments before and have no problems there, however nowhere can I find guidance on what is allowed under the new subscription type. The implication 'seems' to be that there is no special guidance, however all the discussions I can find are talking about 'content' providers rather than service providers.

I would like to use the recurring subscription for a service that people subscribe to. I am not offering any content per se.

Using the old non-renewing subscription type (that is really so broken it isn't worth using) I'm 99% sure the app would be accepted, but all the talk of content providers has me worried that Apple really don't want SAAS providers to use the recurring subscription model and want to restrict it to publishers of content.

Does anyone have experience with using the new payment model for software as a service?

I'd love to get some better idea as to whether it's viable or not before we build a whole payment solution around the concept!

Solution 1

I am sorry that i am coming into this a little late, but i have an answer for this.

Basically about a month ago i submitted my app and it got rejected for not including iAP as it links to our SAAS website for users to set up their subscriptions. So off i went and implemented Auto-Renwing subscriptions. didn't take me too long and from testing worked fine. So i resubmitted. and got rejected again.

We found that the Purchasability Type for one or more of your In-App Purchase products was inappropriately set, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.

Cloud-books is set to Auto-Renew Subscription.

Based on product functionality, it would be more appropriate to use the non-renewing subscription In-App Purchase type. The Auto-Renewable Subscription product is best suited for apps that require or feature dynamically or frequently changing content, such as digital periodicals or radio subscriptions.

Even though when creating an iAP product there is a nice little line that says this:

Non-renewing subscriptions can still be offered, but auto-renewable subscriptions are now preferred for the following reasons:

So from my experience auto renewing is NOT allowed for SAAS.

Solution 2

I think the policy around auto-renewing subscriptions on iOS may have changed recently, but it's tough because there's still a lot of older information and testimonials from developers out there. Marco Arment's blog talks a lot about the policy here and here, but those are from 2012 and 2013

As of now (mid-2014), from what I've been able to gather, the relevant policy has changed from this:

"Apps that use IAP to purchase items must assign the correct Purchasability type Appler In-App Purchase is currently an Auto-Renewable Subscription. However, it would be more appropriate to use the Non-Renewing Subscription In-App Purchase type. Auto-Renewable Subscriptions are intended for periodical apps, such as magazines and newspapers."

to this:

Apps may only use auto-renewing subscriptions for periodicals (newspapers, magazines), business Apps (enterprise, productivity, professional creative, cloud storage), and media Apps (video, audio, voice), or the App will be rejected.

So it seems like an older restriction that was mostly focused on periodicals has now been expanded to a bunch of other use cases. There are a number of public examples of apps like Evernote that have switched to auto-renewals.

Source: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

Solution 3

As I mention in my comment to @Joe Meredith's response, I received a similar rejection. Although I thought that this was due to an unwritten rule, I just noticed that this Hacker News commenter found a written rule that explicitly states that

Apps containing "rental" content or services that expire after a limited time will be rejected

Solution 4

If I understand your question, you are offering "another month of this service" as a subscription item. This would be a common model for subscription-based games, etc. Probably your best indication of whether or not it is allowed is to look for other apps that do it.

In addition, don't be afraid to contact Apple! They're not monsters, and they do answer questions! You can email tech support or, if that doesn't get you a helpful response, ask to talk with one of Apple's iOS biz-dev managers. They have people whose job it is to help you make your business succeed. If they don't know the answer, they'll find it; if the answer is "no", they'll help you figure out ways to do something similar. They're quite friendly & knowledgable, like a genius bar dedicated to the iOS app business.

Let us know what you learn!

Solution 5

As for 2019, things have changed a little bit. Apple now do allow the usage of the SaaS model with IAP Auto Renewable Subscriptions:

Permissible uses: If you offer an auto-renewing subscription, you must provide ongoing value to the customer, and the subscription period must last at least seven days and be available across all of the user’s devices. While the following list is not exhaustive, examples of appropriate subscriptions include: new game levels; episodic content; multi-player support; apps that offer consistent, substantive updates; access to large collections of, or continually updated, media content; software as a service (“SAAS”); and cloud support. In addition:

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Comments

[Roger]

In my experience the problem with asking Apple is that they won't give clear guidance unless that guidance is already published (which it presently doesn't seem to be). Hence why I'm asking the wider community as I'm sure someone else must already be doing it ... or have been rejected for trying!

[Denis de Bernardy]

I think I'd still take my chances asking them directly, personally. It might also be worth pinging John Gruber or Gizmodo on twitter -- if anything they're more likely to have heard of someone who succeeded or failed in the past than SO users.

[kidsid49]

Evernote does that and their app is not got rejected.Seems strange!! –

[Roger]

What I have learnt is that there is NO channel for actually talking to Apple. How do I know this? I've finally had a phone call from Apple in the US (it's taken over a month to get this far) confirming that there is no channel for speaking to anyone about the project or their policies.

[Roger]

I concur, although it transpires that Apple WILL allow auto-renewing for some SAAS on a case by case basis. I have reason to believe (but no evidence per se) that a longstanding track record with non-renewing subscriptions is a prerequisite for acceptance.

[Joe Meredith]

Interesting, it would be nice to find evidence to support this, but i assume that would be pretty difficult to get hold of. It is still a pain and something i believe Apple is having issues with at the moment - consistency in their review team.

[benvolioT]

I got the same response for my auto-renewable IAP. In my case, the purchase was for optional multimedia content that some users might find valuable. The way I interpret Apple's response is: "Hey, this is for newspapers and magazines, man." Marco Arment had the same experience and has the same take: marco.org/2012/01/06/autorenewable-subscription-restrictions

[Roger]

This clause does not apply in my case. Apple were quite open in saying that I had not breached any rules, but that they reserve the right to specify which subscription type you should use. Although auto-renew is a more natural fit for content providers, they DO allow some apps to use it for SAAS, however they (my observation) tend to be apps pulling in huge revenues. They basically said I was in a grey area and they consider each such case individually. That's kind of fair enough, the real pain is you have to implement the whole moving subs between devices yourself whereas AR does it all.

[isoiphone]

Roger is correct. The only option is paid support tickets that can be used to contact Apple, with mixed results. Olie please provide a source for your information. If what you are saying is true it would be great to know this email address/phone number.

[ccwasden]

Does anyone have a list of 4 or 5 examples besides Evernote that use auto-renewable for a SAAS app? I understand it's case by case but it would be nice to get some other examples for comparison