Handle a subscription price increase wrong and you don't just annoy the customer, you lose the subscription

You can raise the price of a subscription whenever you want. What you cannot do is assume the customer comes along for the ride. A subscription price increase is the rare product change the customer has a formal right to refuse, and both the App Store and Google Play build that refusal right into the billing system. On the App Store, a customer who never responds to the increase is treated as having said no, and the subscription simply ends. Handle the increase without knowing that, and you do not just annoy people, you quietly cancel the very subscribers you were trying to earn more from.

The mechanics are not the same on each store, and the differences decide how much of your base you keep. Apple has a threshold below which it raises the price for you, and above which it must ask each subscriber to consent. Google Play splits every increase into opt-in, where silence cancels the plan, and opt-out, where silence keeps it, and only offers the friendlier option in some places. Here is exactly how a subscription price increase works on each store, when the customer gets a veto, and what the veto costs you when it lands.

Why a subscription price increase is different from any other change

You can change almost anything about your app without asking permission. You can redesign it, drop features, add tiers, and reprice for new customers, and the store just lets you. A subscription price increase for people who are already paying is the exception. Because it changes a recurring charge the customer already agreed to, both stores treat it as a new agreement the customer has to accept, not a change you can impose. That single fact is why a raise can shrink your revenue instead of growing it. The number on the page goes up, but the set of people willing to pay it can go down, and on one store doing nothing counts as walking away.

When the App Store makes you ask for consent

Apple runs every increase through one test: is it small enough to apply on its own, or large enough to need the customer's yes. When you schedule the increase in App Store Connect, you also choose whether existing subscribers are affected at all, or whether you preserve their current price and only charge new customers more.

The three triggers that require consent

Apple requires a subscriber's explicit consent if any one of three things is true. First, the subscriber is in a region that requires consent for every price change, which includes Germany, Austria, Poland, and South Korea among others. Second, the increase is more than 50 percent of the current price and the difference is more than about US$5 per period for a non-annual subscription, or about US$50 per year for an annual one. Both parts of that second test have to be true, so a large percentage on a cheap plan can still stay automatic. Third, the subscriber already went through a price increase on that same subscription within the past 12 months. Stay clear of all three and Apple raises the price for you, with no action needed from the customer.

These amounts vary by country, and Apple can adjust them for tax and exchange-rate changes. The percentage part of the test, more than 50 percent, does not change.

What happens when the customer says nothing

This is the part that costs developers money without them noticing. When Apple requires consent, it asks the subscriber to agree through email, a push notification, and in-app messaging on iOS 13.4 or later. If the subscriber agrees, the plan renews at the new price. If the subscriber does nothing, the plan does not renew at the higher price. Apple keeps asking about once a week, and if consent never comes, the subscription expires at the end of the current billing cycle at the old price. So the price you set too high does not earn you more from those subscribers. It earns you nothing from them, because they roll off instead of renewing. Apple starts the clock early: the first email goes out 60 days before renewal for plans of two months or longer, 27 days ahead for monthly plans, and 7 days ahead for weekly ones.

How Google Play splits every increase into opt-in and opt-out

Google Play protects existing subscribers by default. When you change a price, everyone who already subscribed goes into what Google calls a legacy price cohort and keeps paying their original price until you decide to end that cohort and move them to the new price. When you do move them, Google sorts the increase into one of two modes, and the mode decides what silence means.

Opt-in is the default, and silence cancels the plan

An opt-in increase is the default, and it is what you get in most regions or whenever the increase is too large or too frequent to qualify for the gentler treatment. The subscriber has to actively accept the new price. Google gives you a 7-day head start after you trigger the migration, during which it sends no notifications, so you can tell subscribers yourself inside the app. Then, starting 30 days before the first renewal at the new price, Google notifies them by email and push. If the subscriber never accepts and reaches that first renewal, Google automatically cancels and expires the subscription on the renewal date. Ignore an opt-in increase and you are not kept on at the old price the way Apple does it. You are gone.

Opt-out keeps the subscriber, where Google allows it

An opt-out increase is the one that behaves the way most developers expect. The subscriber is charged the new price at the next renewal unless they actively cancel or change plans, so silence keeps them paying. The catch is availability. Opt-out is offered only in certain countries, only within limits on how much and how often you can raise the price, and only to developers in good standing on Google Play. Where it is allowed, you still have to show each affected subscriber a clear in-app notice at least 30 days ahead, naming the subscription, the current and new price, and the date the new price takes effect, and the advance notice runs 30 or 60 days depending on the country. Price decreases, by contrast, are always automatic and need no acceptance.

What a price increase actually costs you

The sticker price of a raise is easy to read. The real cost is the subscribers you lose in exchange for the higher number, and that cost is largest exactly where the customer has to opt in.

The consent lane is where your base leaks

When an increase needs consent, whether that is an over-threshold raise on Apple or an opt-in raise on Google Play, a share of your subscribers will simply never respond. Those subscribers do not stay on at the old price on Google Play, and they do not stay at all on either store once the cycle ends. So the arithmetic is not old price versus new price. It is the new price times the people who consent, against the old price times everyone who was renewing before. Push the increase into the consent lane on a large enough cohort and the version that raised the price can bring in less total revenue than leaving it alone.

The costs that do not come back

A subscriber who rolls off after refusing a price increase takes more with them than one month of revenue. You lose the renewal tail you were already counting on, the lifetime value of an account that was going to keep paying, and any fixed cost you spent acquiring them that had not yet paid back. None of that shows up as a refund or a chargeback. It shows up as a subscriber who was there last month and is not there this month, which is why a price increase that looks successful in the pricing screen can read as a churn spike in the numbers that matter.

How to raise a price without losing the subscriber

You cannot remove the customer's right to refuse, but you can decide how often you put them in a position to use it.

Stay inside the automatic lane when you can

On the App Store, keeping an increase within the threshold, under 50 percent or under the currency amount, means Apple applies it for you and no subscriber has to consent. On Google Play, keeping the increase within the region, amount, and frequency limits is what makes opt-out available, so silence keeps the subscriber instead of canceling them. Several smaller increases that each stay in the automatic lane will usually keep more of your base than one large raise that forces a consent step. Remember Apple's 12-month rule though: a second increase on the same subscription within a year forces consent no matter how small it is.

Grandfather the subscribers you already have

Both stores let you raise the price for new customers while leaving current subscribers untouched. Apple calls it preserving the current price. Google calls it leaving the legacy price cohort in place. This is the safest way to reprice, because it captures more revenue from every new sign-up without giving a single existing subscriber a reason to reconsider. You give up the extra revenue from your current base, but you keep the base, and for most apps the base is worth more than the raise.

The outcome of a price increase arrives on the same App Store Server Notifications and Real-time Developer Notifications that RefundHalt already reads for refunds and chargebacks. A subscriber who refuses a raise and expires, and a cohort migration that cancels the subscribers who never opted in, both land as subscription state changes on those feeds. Reading them next to your refunds means you can see what a price increase actually cost you in lost subscribers, instead of guessing from an aggregate revenue line that hides the churn underneath it.

The short version

A subscription price increase is the one change your existing customers get to refuse, and each store handles the refusal differently. Apple applies an increase automatically when it stays within a threshold, under 50 percent and under about US$5 per period or US$50 per year, but requires consent above that, in certain regions, or for a second raise within 12 months, and a subscriber who does not consent expires at the old price. Google Play makes increases opt-in by default, where silence cancels the plan, and offers opt-out only in some regions, where silence keeps the subscriber. The way to protect your revenue is to stay in the automatic lane where you can, grandfather the subscribers you already have, and watch the churn a raise creates rather than only the new price it sets.