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Ask HN: Does App Store support non-store based paid users

3 points by santoshmaharshi ↗ HN
Dear fellow HNers, we are getting into Enterprise App soon. It could have different subscription channel for payments - web, actual offline sales (bank cheques), another app store like Google play.<p>Can there be a model where users pay via 'web only' and are served through ios and android apps. - is this possible - are there any examples of such apps - have/can store take any objections to this model.<p>Thanks in advance.

10 comments

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datacog
It does.

AFAIK, for IOS, if you want your users to pay via 'web only', you cannot mention anything related to external payment within the app, you cannot have a payment flow within the app.

What you can do is, ask users to sign in and/or visit your web page from where you can convert users. You can run email campaigns etc. Or if your users already have a premium login by making payment elsewhere, that should be fine.

santoshmaharshi
@datacog do you know any examples of such apps. would be really great. thanks.
Spoom
Pandora (for Pandora One) is one. You can pay monthly through the app, but the (cheaper) yearly option is only available on the website. They can't mention the website option or link directly to it from either the iOS or the Android app due to each market's rules.
loumf
Pretty much every pay SaaS website's app. For the enterprise? Concur, SalesForce, Box, Office
gregcohn
There are many many examples of this. Beats Music was one of the more recent high-profile ones that comes to mind (for shifting from an offline-only pay model to in-app payments for subscriptions). Most of the team productivity apps, as another example category here, that have a premium tier don't offer them in app (Asana, Trello, etc).

There are particular rules to how you do it. You can't promote it in the app. The app has to have some functionality for non-subscribers. You can't use the itunes subscription SKU functionality to delivery your subscription content (obviously, I hope).

You should also consider joining the Enterprise app developer program that Apple offers if you want to by pass some of the above issues.

Not to be overly pointed, but it doesn't seem like you have done much homework here. I recommend you get more familiar with the market you're about to enter.

loumf
The Enterprise app developer program is for apps delivered for your own enterprise, not an app in the App Store that is meant to be used by other enterprises.

In an Apple Enterprise Developer app, you can basically do whatever you want, but you deploy it to devices yourself, and there is a limit to the number of devices. Apple doesn't even look at these apps.

I suspect they reserve the right to police some things (for example VOIP over unlimited data) -- but I don't know that that actually happens.

chrisBob
I am pretty sure amazon prime movies use this functionality. I can view movies on my iPad, but there is no way to purchase a movie through the app. You just have to know to go through amazon.com if you want to see something that is not prime eligible.
santoshmaharshi
@gregcohn @chrisBob thanks. yes something like Amazon Prime and more background to the question. Sorry, I didn't make it clear. Due to enterprise nature and our use case, this app basically runs a dashboard and many tasks in the paid 'web version' and the mobile apps are basically 'clients'. And it does require a setup from Admin's perspective. One cannot just download the app and start using unless admin of the enterprise has subscribed and opted that user for the setup. Hope it add in explaining the question further.
chrisBob
I expect that would get approved without a problem. Advertise it as a viewer for a paid web service. One problem with the app store though is that you can't get an idea approved. You have to just submit the app.