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Apple App Store Denial Because of Apple Pay


We have an app that we're getting ready to release. It is a web-first app where users register for the application and purchase their subscriptions via the web app. We are also developing browser extensions for all of the major browser platforms, including Safari. We are also going to have an iOS app.

Apple has denied our browser extension because we do not support Apple Pay for in-app purchases of "premium content". To be clear, the only "in-app" purchases that we have are the subscription to the platform, which is carried out only on the web app, not in the other planned platforms.

There are many applications in the Apple App Store (e.g., Dropbox, etc.) that have mobile apps and browser extensions and use their web app as the platform for initiating and maintaining subscriptions and the iOS / Safari extensions only allow access to those services. What are we missing in presenting this to Apple for approval? I don't want to end up with the mess that LinkedIn has where you can purchase a subscription as an in-app purchase via the iOS app and the subscription becomes completely unmaintainable outside of the Apple ecosystem.

Thanks in advance for any guidance.


  👤 Nextgrid Accepted Answer ✓
> the subscription becomes completely unmaintainable outside of the Apple ecosystem.

Are they complaining about Apple Pay or in-app purchases?

Apple Pay works like a normal card payment and any good payment processor should offer easy-to-use scripts to support this. It works on the web (on Apple devices) and will work seamlessly in a web view. There is no extra fee and you still retain full control of the customer relationship.

In-app-purchases is the one where the payment goes through Apple. It seems like they're not asking for that currently for your browser extension, but keep in mind they will likely do insist on it for the actual iOS app, so plan ahead.