What are Apple App Store Introductory Offers?
Introductory offers attract new customers by offering subscriptions at a discounted price or through a free trial for a limited time (3 days to 1 year).
Introductory offers are only available on Auto-Renewable Subscriptions, and are available in three flavors:
- free trial
- pay up front
- pay as you go
Introductory offers can last between 3 days to 1 year and are limited to one subscription per territory.
Once the offer period expires, the customer pays the full price for the next subscription period, which renews monthly or yearly, depending on the subscription that they used an introductory offer on.
Their primary use is for acquiring new subscribers.
The customers that are eligible are new subscribers within the app.
They are distributed and redeemed within the app or on the App Store via promoted in-app purchase.
Introductory offers can be paired with custom offer codes to extend a promotion for a new customer.
How do I create an Introductory Offer for my App?
You can either create an introductory offer for your app using Apple's App Store platform (App Store Connect) or the App Store Connect API.
Follow our guide below to learn how to create, edit and delete Introductory Offers.
Can Customers buy the same introductory offer more than once ?
Yes.
If your app is not developed to deny introductory offers to previously subscribed customers, customers can cancel their subscription and, after it expires, buy a new subscription with the same introductory offer.
If this is not a desirable business model, make sure that your development team builds and tests for these scenarios to avoid losing money.
How to I get informed when a customer redeems an Introductory Offer?
In order to receive, measure and analyze or take action on events outside your app related to introductory offers; or to engage with a customer when they redeem an introductory offer, you must create a backend system that implements App Store Server API which should implement App Store Server Notifications (ASSNs).
Looking for more information on building e-commerce Apple apps?
Read our business guide to get our latest market and customer research, perspective and recommendations on building Apple e-commerce apps that use In-App Purchases and Subscriptions.