Until now, iPhone applications had to obtain your validation before increasing the price of their subscriptions. It is not the case anymore. Apple now allows App store developers to automatically increase their prices, under certain conditions. Do not panic, you will always be warningof the increase.
With 75 billion euros in revenue generated in 2021, the App Store is one of Apple’s most lucrative platforms. A good part of this income comes from subscriptions which are now found in abundance on streaming or dating applications. Well aware of this issue, the Cupertino company also seeks to make life easier for users by authorizing the payment of these subscriptions without going through the App Store.
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.
App Store subscriptions’s increases no longer need your permission
But the manufacturer also wants to put the developers in the pocket. Also, until now, any increase in the price of the subscription had to obtain the authorization of the user, failing which the payment was automatically canceled. However, Apple has just lifted this restriction. From now on, you may end up with a higher bill than usual without realizing it. Well almost.
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Indeed, several restrictions accompany this new regulation. For starters, Apple will continue to notify you when a price increase is about to take effect. You will then receive an email several days in advance, a notification on your device and a message within the application. In theory, the new subscription price should therefore not go unnoticed by users.
Currently, when an auto-renewable subscription price is increased, subscribers must opt in before the price increase is applied. The subscription doesnāt renew at the next billing period for subscribers who didn’t opt in to the new price. This has led to some services being unintentionally interrupted for users and they must take steps to resubscribe within the app, from Settings on iPhone and iPad, or in the AppĀ Store on Mac.
Also, developers won’t be able to raise prices as they see fit. Thus, the increase on monthly subscriptions cannot exceed 5 dollars; while it will be a maximum of 50 dollars on annual subscriptions. If the publisher of the application nevertheless wishes to cross this limit; it will have to obtain a manual validation from the user, as before. Finally, it will not be able to apply more than one increase per year and will therefore have to wait 12 months for the next one.
