docs/html/google/play/billing/billing_overview.jd

page.title=In-app Billing Overview
parent.title=In-app Billing
parent.link=index.html
@jd:body

<div id="qv-wrapper">
<div id="qv">
  <h2>Quickview</h2>
  <ul>
    <li>Use In-app Billing to sell digital products, including one-time products and
recurring subscriptions.</li>
    <li>In-app Billing is supported for any app published on Google Play. You need only a
    Google
Play Developer Console account and a Google payments merchant account.</li>
    <li>Google Play automatically handles checkout processing with the
same look and feel as app purchases.</li>
  </ul>
  <h2>In this document</h2>
  <ol>
    <li><a href="#api">In-app Billing API</a></li>
    <li><a href="#products">In-app Products</a>
       <ol>
       <li><a href="#prodtypes">Product types</a>
       </ol>
    </li>
    <li><a href="#console">Google Play Developer Console</a></li>
    <li><a href="#checkout">Google Play Purchase Flow</a></li>
    <li><a href="#samples">Sample App</a></li>
    <li><a href="#migration">Migration Considerations</a></li>
  </ol>
   <h2>Related samples</h2>
  <ol>
    <li><a href="{@docRoot}training/in-app-billing/preparing-iab-app.html#GetSample">Sample
      Application (V3)</a></li>
  </ol>
   <h2>Related videos</h2>
  <ol>
    <li><a class="external-link"  href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvCl5Xx7Z5o">
    Implementing
      Freemium</a></li>
  </ol>
</div>
</div>

<p>This document describes the fundamental In-app Billing components and
features that you need to understand in order to add In-app
Billing features into your application.</p>

<p class="note"><b>Note</b>: Ensure that you comply with applicable laws in the countries where
 you distribute apps. For example, in EU countries, laws based on the
<a class="external-link"
 href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2005:149:0022:0039:EN:PDF">
Unfair Commercial Practices Directive</a> prohibit direct exhortations to children to buy
  advertised products or to persuade their parents or other adults to buy advertised products
  for them. See the
<a class="external-link"
 href="http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/enforcement/docs/common_position_on_online_games_en.pdf">
position of the EU consumer protection authorities</a> for more information on this and other
topics.
</p>

<h2 id="api">In-app Billing API</h2>
<p>Your application accesses the In-app Billing service using an API that is
exposed by the Google Play app that is installed on the device. The Google Play
app then conveys billing requests and responses between your
application and the Google Play server. In practice, your application never
directly communicates with the Google Play server. Instead, your application
sends billing requests to the Google Play app over interprocess
communication (IPC) and receives responses from the Google Play app.
Your application does not manage any network connections between itself and
the Google Play server.</p>
<p>You can implement In-app Billing only in applications that you publish
through Google Play. To complete in-app purchase requests, the Google Play app
must be able to access the Google Play server over the network.</p>

<p>In-app Billing Version 3 is the latest version, and it maintains very broad
compatibility across the range of Android devices. In-app Billing Version 3 is
supported on devices running Android 2.2 (API level 8) or higher that have the latest version
of the Google Play app installed (<a
href="{@docRoot}about/dashboards/index.html">a vast majority</a> of active
devices).</p>

<h4>Version 3 features</h4>
<p>In-app Billing Version 3 provides the following features:</p>
<ul>
<li>Your app sends requests through a streamlined API that allows users to easily request
product details from Google Play and order in-app products. The API quickly restores
products based on the user's ownership.</li>
<li>The API synchronously propagates order information to the device on purchase
completion.</li>
<li>All purchases are <em>managed</em> (that is, Google Play keeps track of the user's
ownership of in-app products). The user can't own multiple copies of an in-app
product; only one copy can be owned at any point in time.</li>
<li>Purchased products can be consumed. When consumed, the product reverts to the
<em>unowned</em> state and can be purchased again from Google Play.</li>
<li>The API provides support for <a
  href="{@docRoot}google/play/billing/billing_subscriptions.html">subscriptions</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>For details about other versions of In-app Billing, see the
<a href="{@docRoot}google/play/billing/versions.html">Version Notes</a>.</p>

<h2 id="products">In-app Products</h2>
<p>In-app products are the digital products that you offer for sale to users from inside your
application. Examples of digital products include in-game currency,
application feature upgrades that enhance the user experience, and new content
for your application.</p>
<p>You can use In-app Billing to sell only digital content.
You can't use In-app Billing to sell physical products, personal services, or
anything that requires physical delivery. Unlike with priced applications, there is no refund
 window after
the user has purchased an in-app product.</p>
<p>Google Play does not provide any form of content delivery. You are
responsible for delivering the digital content that you sell in your
applications. In-app products are always explicitly associated with
 only one app. That is, one application can't purchase an in-app product
that is published for another app, even if they are from the same developer.</p>

<h3 id="prodtypes">Product types</h3>
<p>In-app Billing supports different product types to give you flexibility in
how you monetize your application. In all cases, you define your products using
the Google Play Developer Console.</p>
<p>You can specify two product types for your In-app Billing application:
 <em>managed in-app products</em> and <em>subscriptions</em>. Google Play
handles and tracks ownership for in-app products and subscriptions for your
application on a per-user basis.
<a href="{@docRoot}google/play/billing/api.html#producttypes">Learn more</a> about
the product types supported by In-app Billing Version 3.</p>

<h2 id="console">Google Play Developer Console</h2>
<p>The Developer Console is where you can publish your
In-app Billing application and manage the various in-app products that are
available for purchase from your application.</p>
<p>You can create a product list of
digital products that are associated with your application, including products for
one-time purchase and recurring subscriptions. You can define
information for each product such as the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Unique product ID (also called its SKU).</li>
<li>Product type.</li>
<li>Pricing.</li>
<li>Description.</li>
<li>Google Play handling and tracking of purchases for that product.</li></p>
</ul>
<p>If you sell several of your apps or in-app products at the same price, you
can add <em>pricing templates</em> to manage these price points from a
centralized location. When using pricing templates, you can include local taxes
within the prices you provide, or you can provide prices and have the system
add local taxes to these prices. You can make changes to the prices in your
pricing templates, such as refreshing the exchange rates for certain
countries, and your changes are applied to the apps and in-app products
that you link to the template.</p>
<p>You can also create test accounts to authorize
access for testing applications that are unpublished.</p>
<p>To learn how to use the Developer Console to configure your in-app
products and product list, see
<a href="{@docRoot}google/play/billing/billing_admin.html">Administering
In-app Billing</a>.</p>

<h2 id="checkout">Google Play Purchase Flow</h2>
<p>Google Play uses the same backend checkout service that is used for application
purchases, so your users experience a consistent and familiar purchase flow.</p>
<p class="note"><strong>Important:</strong> You must have a Google payments
merchant account to use the In-app Billing service on Google Play.</p>
<p>To initiate a purchase, your application sends a billing request for a
specific in-app product. Google Play then handles all of the checkout details for
the transaction, including requesting and validating the form of payment and
processing the financial transaction.</p>
<p>When the checkout process is complete,
Google Play sends your application the purchase details, such as the order
number, the order date and time, and the price paid. At no point does your
application have to handle any financial transactions; that role belongs to
 Google Play.</p>

<h2 id="samples">Sample Application</h2>
<p>To help you integrate In-app Billing into your application, the Android SDK
provides a sample application that demonstrates how to sell in-app products and subscriptions
from inside an app.</p>

<p>The <a href="{@docRoot}training/in-app-billing/preparing-iab-app.html#GetSample">
TrivialDrive for the Version 3 API</a> sample shows how to use the In-app
Billing Version 3 API
to implement in-app product and subscription purchases for a driving game. The
application demonstrates how to send In-app Billing requests and handle
synchronous responses from Google Play. The application also shows how to record
product consumption with the API. The Version 3 sample includes convenience classes
for processing In-app Billing operations as well as perform automatic signature
verification.</p>

<p class="caution"><strong>Recommendation</strong>: Be sure to obfuscate the
code in your application before you publish it. For more information, see
<a href="{@docRoot}google/play/billing/billing_best_practices.html">Security
and Design</a>.</p>

<h2 id="migration">Migration Considerations</h2>
<p>The In-app Billing Version 2 API was discontinued in January 2015.
If you have an existing In-app Billing implementation that uses API Version 2 or
earlier, you must migrate to <a href="{@docRoot}google/play/billing/api.html">
In-app Billing Version 3</a>.</p>

<p>After migration, managed and unmanaged products are handled as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Managed products and subscriptions that you have previously defined in the
 Developer Console
 work with Version 3 just as before.</li>
<li>Unmanaged products that you have defined for existing applications are
 treated as managed products if you make a purchase request for these products using
the Version 3 API. You don't need to create a new product entry in the Developer
Console for these products, and you can use the same product IDs to manage these
products.
</ul>