Subscriptions are not a trend, and many services have taken advantage of the payment option for quite some time. It’s a great way for customers to break payments up, and for companies to retain customers.
Now, Apple is reminding developers that they will have another tool at their disposal to help with the latter. Customer retention can be rough, but offering up free, or discounted opportunities can certainly help. That’s what new “subscription offer codes” are: unique, alphanumeric codes that provide “free or discounted prices for auto-renewable subscriptions”. These codes make it simple to not only promote their app digitally, but also physically at events and what not.
Later this year, you’ll be able to acquire, retain, and win back subscribers with subscription offer codes: unique, alphanumeric codes that provide free or discounted prices for auto-renewable subscriptions. Provide your one-time use codes digitally or offline at physical events, alongside products, and more. Customers on iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 and later can redeem offer codes on the App Store, through a one-time code redemption URL, or within your app if you’ve implemented the
presentCodeRedemptionSheet API.
These codes make it easy for developers to make a service accessible at no additional cost to a customer for a set period of time. So if a company decides that prompting an extra week of access might sway a potential customer, that’s much easier with this process.
Developers can also take advantage of a new discount code, which can help promote buying a subscription with a single, up-front charge.