CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidgoogle-playandroid-billing
Codegenic
Codegenic

Reputation: 1

Change Paid Android App to Subscription Model but keep it free for past users

My client wants to turn a paid Android app into a free one with subscription options for premium features.

However users that have paid for in the past should not need to subscribe for premium features.

How can I technically check if a users has bought the app once it is free? Does the Google License Verification Library still provide a license even the app has been turned into a free one?

I learned that it's possible to see the purchase history for in-app/subscription billings but for a onetime paid app, the billing library does not track it.

Any help is appreciated :)

I checked the Google billing library and searched for examples but it does not provide any good answer.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 87

Answers (1)

Mark
Mark

Reputation: 7718

Unfortunately, once you make the app free, the License Verification Library returns the same response (except for a user ID that is specific to the user-app combination) for all users, so you cannot detect whether a user had purchased the app before it was made free. You can read more in my answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/76938720/444761

While the app is still paid, consider sending license check responses to your own server (perhaps using Firestore) so you can build up a database that can be later checked once the app has been made free. It may take some months to build up acceptable coverage given that many of your users won't update their app for a long time, or maybe have already uninstalled it.

Upvotes: 0

Related Questions