Apple introducing billing grace period for subscriptions

App Store teaser

Apple is busy making changes for developers putting together apps for its operating systems, and today the company is even introducing a brand new element that it hopes will make auto-renewable subscriptions easier for customers.

This change is for the customer, at least as far as accessing content is concerned. Apple is calling it a “billing grace period” for subscriptions, and its meant to help alleviate some of the pressure for customers who may run into a billing issue, but one that can be fixed relatively quickly.

With this change, Apple says that customers will have the ability to access the content in the app they’ve paid for, even if their auto-renewal has failed. Apple will continue to notify the customer that there is a billing issue, giving them time to fix it before they lose access to the paid content.

If payment from the customer is successful within the grace period, Apple says there will not be any interruptions to the developer’s revenue or the customer’s days of paid service.

We’ve worked closely with leading developers to create a solution for reducing customer churn while improving the experience for auto-renewable subscriptions. With the new grace period for unsuccessful auto-renewals, subscribers can continue accessing your app’s paid content while Apple attempts to collect payment — allowing them time to fix the issue. There won’t be any interruption to the subscriber’s days of paid service or to your revenue if payment is successful within the grace period.

That is certainly quite the change. It will be interesting to see how many developers adopt the new billing grace period for their subscription-based app.