Can you use Google Wallet to facilitate transactions between users of your app, where they pay eachother for the exchange of digital products, while the app takes out a small % out of that transaction? Also, would the 30% fee apply and where?
Beside of being the only allowed payment method in Google Play, wallet is also yet another billing platform. It can't be used to proceed directly payments between users, but can be used to transfer funds to your company, and probably to transfer funds from your company to your users. For out of Google Play they use much lower cut than 30%
Related
I am from Bangladesh and have small startup company. Basically we build app and market them locally. Recently we plan to sell our app's multi digital feature to the user. As google play policy, "digital goods need to sell by google billing". We than start study about it. In our country, google merchant account is possible, so we can implement google billing as payment method.
But problem is, google won't accept payment from any mobile banking or bank account service from our country, only duel currency credit card. Only less than 0.1% has credit card in our country. And another thing, my user maximum lives in villages, without mobile banking how they actually pay us?
So, can I implement local mobile banking in my app rather than google billing as payment. If google accept minimum one mobile banking system in my country, I will happy to use google billing. We only want to distribute my app inside my country right now.
I want to integrate google wallet in my application:
I need the below functionality:-
User can buy some coins from merchant application using google wallet .
For e.g. User will be given an option that 10 coins -- 1$.
so user will be redirected to his google wallet and payment of 1$ will be done from his google wallet to Merchant application's wallet.
User can redeem the coins to money in his google wallet . < This will be done automatically once the user's coin count reaches a predefines value say 1000.> So As soon as user's coins reach 1000. They will be converted to dollars and will be added in his google wallet.
As i did some research :
Google Wallet is available on Android in two flavors.
In-app Billing - used to sell digital goods:
http://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/index.html
Instant Buy for Android - used to sell real goods and services:
https://developers.google.com/commerce/wallet/android-overview/
I do not understand which one of the two serves my purpose.
Please guide me . Thanks
Neither of the two will serve your purpose fully, as neither will allow your second scenario (selling coins back for real money).
In-app billing will let your user buy coins and pay via the Play Store.
Instant Buy (Android Pay) is just a payment method you can use. You'll still need a payment processor (e.g. Stripe or Braintree). The payment processor may allow your second scenario as well, but this will not be handled by Android Pay.
There is no way to pay to a user's Google Wallet. Google Wallet can only be used to send money to friends and family, not for conducting any business. This functionality existed in the past, but is now fully integrated and rebranded into Android Pay (Instant Buy).
I got the answer for this question.
I needed to integrate In-app-billing. I declared my products on google developer console. And user can buy the products using in app billing service.
For Redeeming , google does not support peer to peer payment processing . So my application can not give money directly from merchant account to user account using google service . Google does not support it .
I needed to integrate Paypal for sending money to user account from merchant account.
I heard from someone that on App Store, everything you sell or anything the user buys, Apple must have their 30% on it. That would imply that even if you open a web page within the app and accept a donation, Apple must have its percentage. Otherwise you would have to redirect the user to make this donation outside of the app - for instance, calling the browser.
So, if it's true, I wanted to know if Google holds the same policies. I couldn't find this specific answer in the documentation, just info about in-app purchase (but I'm considering that scenario a purchase within the app, but not IN the app itself (sorry if it sounds confusing).
Taking Groupon as example. If you buy a coupon, is it an "in-app purchase"? I don't believe Google would take 30% on everything you buy there, so I just wanted to make sure it is according to their rules.
The app I'm working on will have both donation and coupon purchase from sponsors (Walgreens, etc). Is it ok if I do this through a WebView, or would I have to actually call the browser?
Sorry if my concept of "in-app purchase" is blurred.
Any information on this topic is much appreciated.
EDIT:
From my understanding, In-App Purchase (for both Google and Apple) is like an API that you use to process these payments.
What I find confusing is that, for instance, in the Apple's In-App Purchase Guidelines:
So, does it mean I cannot use Apple's In-App Purchase to sell my book (but could open my e-commerce site in the app and sell it), or I cannot sell my book at all inside my app?
I know it may sound like a dumb question, but it doesn't seem so clear to me.
The standard 30% transaction fee applies to in-app transactions on Google Play and goes to the distribution partner and operating fees.
According to the Google Play Developer Program Policies:
In-app purchases:
Developers offering virtual goods or currencies
within a game downloaded from Google Play must use Google Play's
in-app billing service as the method of payment.
Developers offering additional content, services or functionality within another category of app downloaded from Google Play must use Google Play's in-app billing service as the method of payment, except: >
where payment is primarily for physical goods or services (e.g., buying movie tickets, or buying a publication where the price also includes a hard copy subscription); or
where payment is for digital content or goods that may be consumed outside of the app itself (e.g., buying songs that can be played on other music players).
Reference: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/112622
With In-App Purchase on iOS and OS X, you can offer your customers additional digital content, functionality, services and even subscriptions within your paid or free app.
For example, In-App Purchase will allow you to sell:
Digital books or photos
Additional game levels
Access to a turn-by-turn map service
Subscriptions to digital magazines or newsletters
Digital content hosted on Apple servers
There are four supported categories of In-App Purchase items that you
may sell: 1) Content, 2) Functionality, 3) Services, and 4)
Subscriptions. You must deliver your digital good or service within
your app. You may not use In-App Purchase to sell real-world goods and
services.
Reference: https://developer.apple.com/in-app-purchase/In-App-Purchase-Guidelines.pdf
I would have commented on another answer that is missing a bit of information, but as I lack the required reputation, I'll post this as a new answer.
It's 100% possible and allowed to sell physical goods or services in an app released on both iOS (via Apple Store) and Android (via Google Store), but the main difference between selling physical good or services and digital goods comes in the payment system to use. Both platform actually have 2 payments systems with, each, their own restriction and legal implementations.
In the case of Google Store (a.k.a. Google Play), it's as this:
Any digital purchases that adds anything into the app itself must be done through Google Play In-app Billing system. To put it simple, this is the typical in-app purchase you see in any game that charge onto the Credit Card registered by the user on the Google Play account.
Any Services and Physical Goods that are not set toward in-app usage have to use either your own version of a selling system (which has to be separated from Google Play In-App Billing system) or, if you want an more secure way, by using the Google Pay API.
The Google Pay API is really similar to the Google Play In-app Billing system as it allow any user to also use the credit card registered to their Google account (note that it's not Google Play, but a general Google Account), but the main difference is that the Google Pay API can also be used outside of an App (like on a website).
An example of stuff you must use the Google Pay API and NOT the Google Play In-App Billing system is to purchase physical goods (which requires a shipping address to be registered with the sell of goods) or services (like paying a rent of a room at an Hotel or the purchase of plane ticket, digital or not).
Here's the link toward the Google Pay API official website: https://developers.google.com/pay/api
For iOS and its Apple Store, the same equivalent exists, but the problem comes from the fact that both methods uses the same base system called Apple Pay.
For sells of goods and services, you need to address to the site "for merchants":
https://support.apple.com/HT204274
https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/
For digital goods that are accessible directly through the app itself, you got to use the In-App Purchase system which is described here:
https://developer.apple.com/in-app-purchase/
There's one important thing you got to remember: Both stores might have some resistance to the idea of publishing an App as an App and as a Game. Both payment systems have their own rules and guidelines and, as such, if you are to put both a in-app purchase and an option to sell goods and/or services, both has to be visually separated and must NOT be mixed from one to another. For example, they might refuse to publish a game that has only physical goods to sell or an App in their Store app that is more of a game with in-app purchases and barely any instance of real-good purchases.
The cost of using either Google Play In-App purchase or Apple Pay In-App purchase is 30% of the sales.
On the other hands, Apple Pay for merchants (physical goods & services) have no additional cost from the credit cards issuers' fee which is usually around 3% to 6% based on the payment methods. For example, if the user is using Paypal to pay on Apple Pay, it's 2.9% + $0.30 USD per transaction. Direct Mastercards and Visa users might pay up to 6%. This is done and managed directly by Apple Pay.
Google Pay (for merchant) is also free and come with a fixed percentage rate of 2.9% per sales with credits cards and, in some countries, offers free transaction for direct-bank-transfers and debit cards.
In both cases, there's a limit per transaction. Google Pay has transaction limits, but their depends on the shops and user (shopper) data. I have seen the number $10,000 often as a limit per transaction.
Apple, technically, has limits or security based on the country where the purchase is placed. (All numbers are here: https://support.apple.com/HT207435 )
I am building a free android app in which there should be a "store" where you can buy some item.
The plan is that user could pay for it using paypal or something. Now my question is, does playstore takes some percentage for such transaction? And if so, how much does it take?
The accepted answer is correct, but we should take into consideration another aspect about purchasing via smartphone/tablet. This recalls #JaranJhanjee's downvoted answer which is wrong but contains a little important truth
The 30% fee is charged by Google for in-app purchases according to their terms
Paid and Free Apps
App purchases: Developers charging for apps and downloads from Google Play must do so by using Google Play's payment system.
In-app purchases:
Developers offering virtual goods or currencies within a game downloaded from Google Play must use Google Play's in-app billing service as the method of payment.
Developers offering additional content, services or functionality within another category of app downloaded from Google Play must use Google Play's in-app billing service as the method of payment, except:
where payment is primarily for physical goods or services (e.g., buying movie tickets, or buying a publication where the price also includes a hard copy subscription); or
where payment is for digital content or goods that may be consumed outside of the app itself (e.g., buying songs that can be played on other music players).
Google always charges the 30% via its in-app billing API. But there are cases in which such an API should be avoided to not incur in an excessive charging
If navigator maps are usable across more devices (especially non-Android devices like iPhones o MS Phones)
If maps will be delivered packaged in an SD card at the customer's home address
In such cases, the seller is allowed to implement a different payment gateway like Google Wallet API or PayPal
Google charges 30% for every transaction. Details can be checked here.
Refer below link for google charges.
You receive 70% of the payment. The remaining 30% goes to the distribution partner and operating fees.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/112622?hl=en
For apps and in-app products offered through Google Play, the
transaction fee is equivalent to 30% of the price. You receive 70% of
the payment. The remaining 30% goes to the distribution partner and
operating fees.
As of January 1, 2018, the transaction fee for subscription products
decreases to 15% for any subscribers you retain after 12 paid months.
If a subscriber has been active as of this date, that time will be
counted. For example, if a subscriber has been active for 4 months,
the transaction fee will be reduced to 15% after 8 more paid months.
Reference
In Android documentation, you can find how to implement subscription billing for the products that you offer for sale within your application. It involves exchanging a number of messages with Google server.
I just want to sell my application itself (not products within it) with subscription. I feel that it would be almost as simple as selling the application for a one-time charge. When after one year the license becomes invalid, the licensing mechanism in the Google server would tell the customer to renew it.
So my question is : do I have to implement the whole in-app billing described in the documentation ? What is the minimum work I have to do to sell an application itself with subscription ? As far as I investigated, this is not obvious or clear. Does someone have more experience ?
Google Play's own selling method itself doesn't allow for subscription style billing. If you want to have a subscription type billing, you must use in app billing, or sell the app through your own website.
The absolute minimum would be to allow the user to download the app for free, or perhaps pay for one year when buying the app itself. After downloading a free app, you must ask the user to pay the first subscription payment. If you charged the user when buying the app, ask for payment after a year.
So in short, yes, you must use in app billing for this.