iOS recurring subscription policy for service, not content

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:

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 4:

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