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Google introduces new tools to help developers build successful subscription-based apps

One struggle felt by all developers is getting users to pay for mobile applications. This issue affects developers creating $0.99 games as well as those coding $5 photo editing applications. To make up for lost revenue, developers have turned to using in-app purchases as well as subscription-based models. To make subscriptions a more viable option for companies and individual developers alike, Google has introduced several new tools within the Google Play Console…

The latest tool for developers to use is a new subscription dashboard within the Play Console. Here, they can see “new subscribers, cancellations, and total subscribers. It also displays daily and 30-day rolling revenue data, and highlights your top-performing products.” Basically, Google is able to track all of these important numbers for you automatically which might help identify an issue with your subscription model or be the deciding factor in a future business decision.

The second new tool is something called “account hold.” Available for developers starting in June, account hold is a way for an application to block premium content from being displayed if a user’s payment does not go through. According to research done by Google, companies that used account hold saw a 25 percent increase in its renewal rate because the withholding of premium features was enough for most users to take out their wallets and renew.

If you would like to know more about Google’s new tools as well as other insightful data about the use of a subscription-based revenue model, you can read Google’s blog post on the subject. Additionally, you can watch the “Make more money with subscriptions on Google Play” session from Google I/O 2017 embedded below.


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Avatar for Justin Duino Justin Duino

I’m a writer for 9to5Google with a background in IT and Android development. Follow me on Twitter to read my ramblings about tech and email me at justin@jaduino.com. Tips are always welcome.


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