Subscription details will be highlighted, including billing interval

May 25, 2012 11:34 GMT  ·  By

One year ago, Google released In-app Billing on Android Market, now known as Google Play Store. The option gave developers the possibility to sell their apps and receive feedback easier than before.

Since its launch, In-app Billing greatly improved Google Play users’ experience and allowed devs to monetize their apps through various tools, such as try-and-buy, virtual goods, upgrades, and other business models.

Building on the success of In-app Billing among devs and consumers alike, Google decided to improve it even further by adding another business model, subscriptions.

Starting today, developers will be able to offer users the possibility to grab their apps that requires subscription, directly from Google Play.

The new payment option will be highlighted in detail, so customers will know the price and the billing interval before purchasing the application.

Customers won’t have to manually pay their subscriptions after they purchased an application, as Google Play is now able to manage recurring billing.

Google will also inform customers of new charges by simply sending them an email with each renewal. Obviously, customers will be able to cancel their subscriptions at any time from the My Apps section in the Play store app.

For developers, the new improvement makes things rather trivial when it comes to selling monthly or annual subscriptions from inside of apps.

According to Google, all subscriptions are auto-renewing, so each app and/or game, as well as every type of subscription product will be charged automatically.

The only thing devs will need to do is setting the price and billing interval, as Google Play will manage the purchase transactions for them.

While making it easy for developers to offer a great purchasing experience, our subscriptions are also designed for flexibility. Developers can use them to monetize premium dynamic content such as journals and magazines, but they can also use them to sell access to bundled products, game levels, music and video content, value-added services, or any other digital content,” concluded Ibrahim Elbouchikhi, product manager on the Google Play team.