Bypassing Playstore Subscription as a SaaS
hi,
I am working on a mobile app and plan to make it a subscription model. At present, I have 2 options.
-Use google play's subscription service and give them 30% on every sale.
OR
-Find a way to bypass paying to google in-app and redirect the user to a web page and process through a regular payment gateway like paddle or stripe.
The question is will google allow the second method?
Let's say during the app review my app is rejected for the link to web payment gateway. so can I have a page mentioning "please visit www.websitename.com to upgrade your plan" with a link to your home page also an issue?
A major part of my growth plan involves referrals. I plan on giving 30% to the referrer so giving another 30% to google will be an overkill for me as after fees and all, I will only get 30% or something.
If the above option arent doable, is there any other pay I can charge directly as an only mobile app SaaS.
I'd advise reading the rules directly: https://play.google.com/about/monetization-ads/
The short answer is that unless your app falls into a specific category (physical goods) they will not allow the second option. The only real option to get around this is to not allow purchasing in the app at all, and make no mention of it. For example with netflix you can't use the app at all until you are setup with an account, they don't let you buy a subscription there. If the app store is a distribution/marketing strategy that's not going to work for you though.