Earlier this year, Apple had been testing a new feature to let developers charge increased prices for auto-renewable subscriptions. Although this “pilot program” was restricted to selected developers, Apple is now rolling out these changes to everyone – although it has some limits.
Currently, when the developer increases the price of an auto-renewable subscription, users must confirm that they will continue subscribing at the new price, otherwise the subscription is cancelled automatically. Now with the update, the price increase will be charged even without user action.
Of course, as detailed on the Apple Developer website, there will be some limits to prevent developers from abusing this feature. For instance, users will be notified of the subscription price change. Even then, Apple makes it clear that the price increase cannot occur more than once a year.
Other limits include a maximum increase of $5 for regular subscriptions or $50 for annual subscriptions. In these situations, Apple will let users know about price changes via email, push notification, and a message within the app. Users will also have easy access to an option to cancel the subscription if they want to.
Auto-renewable subscriptions are a great way to let people access content, services, or premium features in your app. And Apple continues to set the bar in making it easy and transparent for subscribers to view, cancel, or manage their subscriptions. Our comprehensive approach includes providing email, push notifications, and in-app messaging to let subscribers know about upcoming changes and how to manage their subscriptions, or cancel if they prefer.
If the price increase for an auto-renewable subscription exceeds these limits, users will have to manually re-subscribe through the app. The subscription won’t renew at the next billing period for subscribers who didn’t opt in to the new price.
More details about the changes in auto-renewable subscriptions can be found on the App Store Connect website.
