Developers offering subscriptions on Google Play

Developers offering subscriptions on Google Play

+Users can start subscriptions inside apps or games then cancel them without much fanfare.

Although most of the excitement of Google I/O has passed since the first day, the developer conference is still ongoing and smaller announcements are trickling one by one.

Many of these are geared toward developers, but will impact end-users at some point, as is the case with these new tools for devs who offer subscriptions on the Play Store.

Google is working on a few tools that would help devs better manage their subscriptions. It has already added new insights to the Play Console and is now testing four new features.

To hook users, developers can offer them an option to subscribe and install the app/game in one go from the Play Store listing, meaning there's no need for them to later subscribe from inside the app.

Devs will also have two new tools to keep existing subscribers who are about to cancel their commitment.

One is to offer them a temporary pause in order to avoid them canceling it outright if they won't be using it for a period of time.

And the second is to give them a winback discount and see if that helps keep them hooked.

Pause will go live in a few months, whereas Subscribe and install, Promo codes, and Winback offers are in early closed beta.