Overview of Purchase Types

There are four distinct types of in-app purchases, each supporting a different business need. If these four types of in-app purchases do not fit your business needs, you will have to roll your own. Writing your own in-app purchase service could be very time consuming. I would recommend seeing if your business needs can be adapted to fit Apple's model. The benefit is not only a decrease in development time, but also there is a benefit the user. When you use Apple's system, your user will see a familiar interface and login with a familiar set of credentials: their Apple ID. The four types of in-app purchases are as follows:

  • Non-consumable
  • Consumable
  • Subscriptions
  • Auto-renewing subscriptions

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