Unable to remove an in-app subscription from my google play developer console

Question

I have published a new version of my app, and although it has no In-app functionality or billing permission, the Google play page of my app shows that the app has a 0.50cent in-app item for purchase. This is because a few months ago I was playing around with the in-app billing feature. For my internal tests, I uploaded a test apk with the required permissions and created the in-app billing subscription. I removed the test apk but the console doesn't allow me to disable or remove the in-app billing item.

I've tried to upload to the alpha channel a new apk with the billing permission but it hasn't worked out. As you can see in the screenshot, the button still appears grayed out.

As a result, the users of my app will now think that I want to charge them for some features, when I don't. The app is totally free and yet, due to the remaining in-app item in my console, Google Play says that my app includes in-App purchases.

UPDATE: I've double-checked that the currently published apk does not include the com.android.vending.BILLING permission.

How can I get rid of this in-app billing item in my Google Play console?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

UPDATE:

I contacted Google around this and here's the reply I've got:

Thanks for your reply. I understand that the situation is frustrating and I wish I could help, however we're unable to delete the subscription product from the app. Just to clarify about your subscription setup:

• We do not support testing for subscription in-app products at this time, as mentioned in this article: http://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/billing_testing.html
• Your currently published alpha APK includes the billing permission.

I really wish there was a way I could remove the subscription for you or at least allow you to hide it from your Play Store page, but our system does not support that functionality at this time. This is something our product team is aware of and we're investigating possible solutions. I've added your information to the discussion, though I don't have an expected date for a resolution at this time.

I apologize for the inconvenience, and hope that we can offer a solution soon.

The mentioned alpha APK was uploaded after detecting the issue and it's not causing it.

Solution 1

This is a workaround from the dev pages.

Important: To change the price of a subscription, you can publish a new subscription product ID at a new price, then offer it in your app instead of the original product. Users who have already purchased will continue to be charged at the original price, but new users will be charged at the new price.

Link

Solution 2

As people, including myself are still looking at this old question, here's my answer.

At first I agreed that not being able to unpublish or remove my app's available subscriptions from the Store, as is still the case in 2020, is a problem. However, although it seems not great, in fact it's no problem at all.

The list of subscriptions isn't loaded from the Store, but from the app's "own" server. Simply preventing a subscription from being included in the list, from your own server, of current subscriptions prevents new users being able to sign up.

Comments

[dakab]

This may seem like a real hassle (which it is), but it also seems to be the only way to “delete” in-app purchase products (i.e. create a new app with the desired range of products).

[Tobias]

This might be no option for most because it also means, losing lots of users

[Alexander K. J. Schmidt]

I create a new app to get rid of the "testing" in app subscriptions. It would be nice to have a real testing enviroment.

[Marlon]

On our case, we want to move all users to the new subscription product. So we want to cancel the old subscription. We don't want old users to stay on the old product. So far we have no workaround.

[Abdullah Z Khan]

So if I show my own list (of subscriptions I want to provide) instead of directly getting the list from google, it would work? I need to add billing to a project, and this "no-unpublish" rule has me confused.

[Markers]

I don't think you can get the list of subscriptions from Google (although I'm a bit rusty on this). You can get what the user is subscribed to, but that's not the full list. You have to get the list from your own source. Its details have to correspond to those you've set up in your store, then everything works.

[serif]

If you think of deleting an app because of a subscription, it means that the subscription creates an abnormal pressure. Instead of dealing with app sales and subscriptions, I advertise in the app. Fewer problems is the best policy.