Is it possible to use google's in app billing mechanism for purchasing subscriptions for multiple user in my application? I have login/register mechanism implemented on my own server and users can purchase subscription to get news. But when i logout and login for another user, i dont have that subscription and have to pay again. I dont think thats possible with IAB android mechanism but i rather ask
I think i have a solution for this. Subscription will realy be only simple one-time item that can be purchased and my own server will handle expiration dates.
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In my android application I want to let users to authenticate with google or facebook account.
I've implemented sign-in with google already.
I'll try to implement sign-in with facebook soon.
I've read about IAP in android:
https://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/billing_overview
https://droidmentor.com/inapppurchase-subscription/
at least what I understand it is about google account authentication.
So I wonder is it possible to make IAP in android application if the user is authenticated with facebook account ?
I cant find examples or explanations by now.
Any good examples/explanations about IAP with google is also very appreciated because I still don't have a clear vision on IAP.
fyi: In my app user will be able to buy "virtual tickets pack" (e.g.: 10, 15, 20 tickets) and to add them to their profile. and later they will "consume" tickets one by one.
Best Regards
My understanding is that you already have a user system that you are using to provide a Google login to your customers. When you add Facebook login, you'll probably want to match both Google and Facebook logins with your own custom user ID. It's always a good idea to have a custom ID of your own so that you can map it to different types of logins.
When purchasing through Google Play Billing, the purchase gets associated with the user's phone Google account and you can also provide an optional way of associating a purchase with your own user account system. In order to do that, when building the BillingFlowParams, call setAccountId and pass your account's system custom ID.
To provide the best experience persisting purchases during installs or across devices you should also be saving the purchases on your server's database. In order to do that in a secure manner, you will also have to implement server-side receipt validation. If you want to avoid most of these headaches, I recommend you to use a service like RevenueCat.
IAP can only be done through the user's google account, as that is what one needs to use any part of the Play Store. The user's google account is also where the credit card/other payment methods are stored for each user.
In spite of the above, the way users log into your app has nothing to do with them using the IAP system. When a user will choose to use an IAP, the google account data will be provided by the android device/Play Store, not by your app (Off subject:the process is similar on iOS if you ever get to try there).
What your app needs to do, is receive the confirmation of purchase from the IAP sdk and then mark on your server that this particular user has purchased this item. Basically for any purchases (no matter the payment provider) you would usually mark in your DB the following:
what the user has purchased
how much did he pay
when did he pay
provider's id of the purchase, so you can later match the accounting reports with the payment provider's report
where he payed from (IP can be a good indicator, although in the age of VPNs not necessarily 100% acurate)(this can be useful for your marketing decisions)
mark that this user now has access to the item he purchased and if it is a time limited item, mark when it expires, so you are able to later check if he still has the right to access it.
Disclaimer:
I have not used the android IAP system directly before. I have implemented mobile app payment systems before using iOS IAP and on android Braintree payments. But the process is most likely very similar with android IAPs as well.
I am curios to implement in app purchase but there for i have some questions. I have already seen this post that helped to setup google account and products. I have created two subscriptions on google app purchase which is monthly and yearly with 7 day free trial also. Please see below my doubts and questions.
It seems i can get only one product at time with in app purchase 2 plugin
I need to show subscription list manually and click on each subscription will get product details ?
After purchase we need to store current subscription details on server side to maintain user current subscription ?
When auto renewal happen then do i need to register web-hook in google/apple developer account to notify our server so we can extend expiry date ? and with out web-hook is possible then how can achieve that and what can be pros and cons ?
What is basic idea to implement restore purchases if user login on second mobile with same google/apple account ?
Thanks,
Your help will be appreciated.
I've implemented a recurring subscription for Android In App Billing, but I'm wondering how the apps knows that the subscription is renewed. In testing, at least, the subscription is ended after 1 day. Will it be continued when the app is published on the store?
On iOS the testing subscription is renewed a couple of times. Enough to let you test when the subscription is renewed, but what is the best way to do this on Android?
Can I use the purchaseToken to let my server query Google Play API or do ever renewed subscription get a new purchaseToken?
In android IAP, The purchase token expires when the user manually cancels the subscription or disables the auto-renew. Otherwise, you will get a valid purchase token every time. In test mode, the tester's subscription automatically gets expired after 5 minutes but in production, it will work fine. So don't get worried about the production behavior. If you are running the app as a tester, you will get the below payment modes on the payment flow start.
You will have 2 options to test your implementation
Test Card(Always Approves)
Test Card(Always Declines)
By testing both of the cards, you can be sure about the implementation. Your app should be capable of handling both responses from IAP. If both flows goes well, You shouldn't be worried about it. You are ready to roll-out it on production. Here is the Official Docs, may help you to understand the entire flow.
If you designed custom flow to manage IAP, You can verify the IAP Token from backend using the Google Play Developer API and allow the user to consume the feature accordingly. For the custom flow, You can send custom JWT token from backend according to IAP Token expiry and set custom JWT Token exp claim. By using this method you can check the custom token is expired or not in the client-side, If it's happened so, You can fetch the new IAP token and send it to your backend. Your backend should validate that IAP token and issue new JWT token to user and cycle goes on. Let me know if you want the custom flow, I'll post it here.
You simply periodically query the Google Play server to check the items that the user own, if it is a subscription, it will reply that he/she owns it while it is active and therefore has not expired.
Do not forget to verify the signature of the received data, and much better using a server side verification
Android - protecting in app purchases with server side verification
I am using google in-app billing v-3 to implement auto renewal subscription process of google in my android application.
In my application user can go for different types of subscriptions, like Subs-1 for 30MB of space, Subs-2 for 90MB and so on. Now if, user chooses initially Subs-1 and then upgrades it to Subs-2, as a result now there are two simultaneous subscriptions on user's account.
I want to cancel first subscription, when second is purchased. Is there any method for the same in android code, or do I have to go for server-side implementation of the same here.
Google docs are really confusing, and I didn't find any solution there.
Yes you could use the cancel method, detailed here https://developers.google.com/android-publisher/api-ref/purchases/subscriptions/cancel#request
All you would need is the subscription_id and token which you got when user purchased the subscription
Please note that i am asking this question, in process of understanding a better way to implement and handle in-app billing in my application.
I just implemented in-app billing V3 successfully to my app. Now my question is, should i store the transaction details, in Database or on Server? If yes, why?
Let me explain my scenario a bit. In my app i have a premium upgrade, that users can buy to unlock certain features. Now, when a user purchases the upgrade, Google Play handles the transaction and lets me know whether the purchase was successful or not. So, if the purchase is successful, i will unlock the features for that user, and store in preferences, whether the purchase is successful or not.
When the application launches, i check(every time), whether the product is purchased or not, and update my application based on that. What happens if the device is not connected to internet? I will go with what the preferences have in currently.
What are the downsides of this approach? When will it fail? and how is storing data on Server help me in better implementation?