Branded Mobile: Set Up In-App Purchases in the Google Play Store

In this article:

About This Feature

Important Considerations

Setting Up In-App Purchases in the Google Play Store

Create a Payments Profile in Google Play

Confirm or Update the Google Service Account Key

Enable the Pub/Sub API in Google Play

Reduce Your App Store Fees

Adding Products to In-App Purchases

Create a New Product for a Non-Expiring or Expiring Course

Create a New Product for an Auto-Renewable Course Subscription

Removing Products from Sale

About This Feature

Branded Mobile fits into your audience’s existing routines, making it easier for them to learn and engage with your content — all on their own schedule. This means higher course completion rates, improved student satisfaction, and more revenue opportunities for your business.

In-App Purchases is a Branded mobile-exclusive feature that allows your students to expand their skills by purchasing new courses directly within your mobile app.

Learn more about In-App Purchases here: Branded Mobile: In-App Purchases.

Important Considerations

• In-app purchases are processed through Google which means that they bypass standard Thinkific checkout. This means that:
  • Money will be deposited directly into your bank account.
  • In-app purchases will be charged a 30% fee by Apple and Google unless you apply for a reduced rate.
• Note that the price of each individual product sold through In-App Purchases cannot exceed $400 USD for Google Play Store.
• We recommend applying to the Google Play program that offer reduced rates to lower in-app purchase fees to 15%: Enrol in the Google Play Store 15% service fee tier.

Setting Up In-App Purchases

The Thinkific team will work closely with you to set up in-app purchases. To ensure a successful setup, you will need to complete the steps below.

Create a Payments Profile in Google Play

To create in-app purchases and accept payments via the Google Play Store:

1. In your Play Console, open the Setup menu on the left-hand side
2. Select Payments profile
3. Create your payments profile. For more information, see: Create a payments profile

Confirm or Update the Google Service Account Key

Ensure that the steps outlined in this section are completed and the Service Account has the following permissions:

• Service Account User role
• Pub/Sub Admin role
• Monitoring Viewer role

If the Service Account does not have those permissions or you did not grant those permissions before, please update the Service Account to include these roles.

To check, please follow these steps:
 

1. Go to Google Cloud
2. Click the menu icon on the top left corner, then select IAM & Admin
3. On the left-hand side, select IAM
4. Find the service account named Thinkific Mobile App that you created in Step 2 of your Android app setup
5. Under the Role column you should see all three roles listed

If you are only seeing "Service Account User" you will need to add the other two roles by following these steps:

1. Select the pencil icon to edit the account
2. Under the Assign Roles section:
   1. Click on +Add another role and search for and select Pub/Sub Admin role
   2. Click on +Add another role and search for and select Monitoring Viewer role
3. Click Save

Enable the Pub/Sub API in Google Play

1. Open this Pub/Sub API page
2. Select your project
3. Click Next to confirm your project
4. Click Enable to enable Cloud Pub/Sub API

Reduce Your App Store Fees

This optional step allows you to reduce your app store fees from 30% to 15%. The Google Play Store offers reduced rates to qualified businesses. To enrol in this program, follow the instructions outlined here: Enrol in the Google Play Store 15% service fee tier.

Adding Products to In-App Purchases

The Thinkific team will work with you on setting up initial in-app purchase products. However, if you decide to make more products available to purchase through your Branded app, you can do it by following these steps:

1. Go to your Admin Dashboard
2. Go to the Mobile App page in the left-side navigation bar
3. Select the In-App Purchases tab
4. Under the In-App Purchase IDs section, find the product you want to make available for purchase via your app
5. Click Create ID next to the product you want to offer
6. Copy the ID once the Product ID is generated

In-app purchases can only be enabled for:

• published courses and bundles with one-time payment pricing with no expiry dates,
• published courses and bundles with one-time payment pricing with expiry dates,
• published courses and bundles with subscription pricing.

Communities, memberships, free trials, free previews, hidden products, and products with monthly payment pricing are not supported through in-app purchases.

Note that Digital Downloads or Coaching & Webinars Products purchased as part of a bundle are not available in the app.

Depending on the type of product you want to sell via In-App Purchases, you will need to select the following product type in the Google Play Store:

Create a New Product for a Non-Expiring or an Expiring Course

1. Go to your Google Play Console
2. Under the Monetize with Play section, select Products option
3. Select In-app products
4. Click Create product
5. Enter Product information, including the Product ID that you copied from Mobile Settings in the Admin Dashboard

Learn more about it here: Create an in-app product.

Create a New Product for an Auto-Renewable Course Subscription

1. Go to your Google Play Console
2. Under the Monetize with Play section, select Products option
3. Select Subscriptions
4. Click Create subscription
5. Enter your subscription details:
   1. Product ID: Add the Product ID that you copied from Mobile Settings in the Admin Dashboard Google Product ID
   2. Name: Add a short name for your subscription
6. Click Create
7. Click Add a base plan:
   1. Base plan ID: Add the 2nd part of the product ID from Mobile Settings in the Admin Dashboard Google Product ID starting with sub
   2. Under Type choose Auto-renewing
   3. Under Grace period choose None

Learn more about it here: Create and manage subscriptions.

Removing Products from Sale

1. Go to Google Play Console
2. From your apps list, select your app
3. In the sidebar under Monetize with Play > Products:
   1. Click In-App Purchases to remove a Non-Expiring or an Expiring Course, or
   2. Click Subscriptions to remove a Course Subscription
4. Click the course you would like to remove
5. On the top right corner, click Deactivate
6. Click Save

Learn More

Branded Mobile: In-App Purchases

Branded Mobile: Set Up In-App Purchases in the Apple App Store

[back to top]