In-app Billing is a Google Play service that lets you sell digital content from inside your applications. You can use the service to sell a wide range of content, including downloadable content such as media files or photos, virtual content such as game levels or potions, premium services and features, and more. You can use In-app Billing to sell products as
New in In-App Billing
- In-app Billing Version 3—The latest version of In-app Billing features a synchronous API that is easier to implement and lets you manage products and purchases more effectively.
- New order number format—Starting 5 December, orders are reported in Merchant Order Number format. See Working with Order Numbers for an example.
- Free trials—You can now offer users a configurable free trial period for your in-app subscriptions. You can set up trials with a simple change in the Developer Console—no change to your app code is needed.
- Standard in-app products (one-time billing), or
- Subscriptions, (recurring, automated billing)
When you use the in-app billing service to sell an item, whether it's an in-app product or a subscription, Google Play handles all checkout details so your application never has to directly process any financial transactions. Google Play uses the same checkout backend service as is used for application purchases, so your users experience a consistent and familiar purchase flow.
Any application that you publish through Google Play can implement In-app Billing. No special account or registration is required other than an Android Market publisher account and a Google Checkout merchant account.
To help you integrate in-app billing into your application, the Android SDK provides a sample application that demonstrates how to sell standard in-app products and subscriptions from inside an app.
To get started, read the documents below or take the Selling In-app Products training class.