在iOS上进行应用内购买

Question

I am completely new to this so please bear with me.

I am developing a service and as part of that service I'd like to give users the option to upgrade their account to get some additional features in return for a small monthly fee.

The service is mobile-first and will run on iOS and Android, as well as a website with some of the features you can get from the app, account management, that kind of thing.

I don't really want to have to encourage people to use the website to signup as the app is supposed to be mobile first. Equally I need their account across any device they wish to use to recognise that they are a premium user.

My question is related to how IAP's work for this monthly subscription:

Do IAP's apply here or can I just use my own sign up and credit card processing? The user isn't buying any downloadable content, just the ability to access a couple of small features on the app. If they do apply, how would my website or the Android app know that the user has purchased a subscription on iOS?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

IAP do apply in this case, but please be aware that it might be against some policies to buy some service on iOS and use it on android and vice verso.

About the process itself, you can use non-renewable subscriptions or renewable subscriptions and communicate the electronic receipt to your server to verify it with apple/google servers and keep your client status on server (active/paid or not active/not paid). And you only authenticate with your server and get the status, while on client make the decision to show the option to buy/extend subscription.