App Store guideline 3.1.1: In-App Purchase

What it means

• What counts as an unlock: subscriptions, in-game currency, game levels, premium content and a full-version upgrade. An app may not invent its own unlocking methods, for example license keys, augmented reality markers, QR codes, cryptocurrency or crypto wallets.
• Currency bought through in-app purchase can be used to tip the developer or digital content providers.
• Bought credits and in-game currency may not lapse, and restorable purchases need a restore mechanism.
• Gifts of purchasable items are allowed. They can only be refunded to the person who bought them and cannot be exchanged.
• Mac App Store apps can host plug-ins or extensions that are activated through something other than the App Store.
• Where randomized virtual items are sold, as with loot boxes, the odds of getting each kind of item have to be shown before purchase.
• Digital gift cards, certificates, vouchers and coupons that are redeemable for digital goods or services may only be sold in the app through in-app purchase. Physical gift cards bought in the app and mailed to the buyer may use other payment methods.
• An app that is not subscription-based may give a free trial of limited length by creating a non-consumable in-app purchase at price tier 0 whose name follows the pattern 'XX-day Trial'. Before the trial starts, the app has to state how long it lasts, which content or services stop working when it ends, and what the user would pay afterwards for full functionality.
• In-app purchase can be used to sell NFT-related services, such as minting, listing and transferring. Apps may display the user's own NFTs as long as owning one does not unlock anything in the app. Apps may let users look through other people's NFT collections, but outside the United States storefront they may not add buttons, outside links or other prompts pointing to other ways of paying.
• 3.1.1(a) Links to other ways of buying: developers can apply for entitlements that let the app link to an allowed destination for buying digital content or services. Apps on the United States storefront do not need an entitlement to add buttons, external links or other calls to action.
• StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlements: in certain regions, an app may sell in-app purchases and also carry a StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement (or, where allowed, a Music Streaming Services Entitlement) with a link to an allowed destination that tells users about other ways to buy digital goods or services. Allowed destinations differ by region. Under the entitlement agreements, the link can say where and how to buy the items and that the price there may be lower. The entitlements apply only in particular storefronts and on certain platforms within them. In every other storefront apart from the United States, apps and their metadata may not carry buttons, outside links or any other prompt that points to payment methods other than in-app purchase.

What reviewers look at

The guideline says an app that uses the entitlement for deceptive marketing, scams or fraud will be taken off the App Store, and the developer may be removed from the Apple Developer Program.

Apple's text

This page is an unofficial explanation in our own words. Unofficial explanation, not affiliated with Apple. Apple's text prevails. Apple's wording is on its page, linked below.

• Apple's App Review Guidelines, guideline 3.1.1

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