Apple announces a grace period for subscriptions to the App Store

Apple today announced a new billing grace period for subscriptions, which will allow subscribers facing automatic renewal failures to continue to use paid content from an app while Apple tries to collect a payment.

This will be a useful feature for developers as customers who do not update their billing as soon as subscription fees become due can lose immediate access to premium features.

The new Apple Option is designed to allow customers to access these premium features while giving them the time to fix the billing problem. Grace periods vary depending on the duration of the subscription.

One-week subscriptions will have a six-day grace period, while all longer subscriptions will have a 16-day grace period.

Apple says that there will be no interruption in the number of days of paid service from a subscriber nor the developer's revenue if the payment ends in the new grace period.

You can now enable the billing grace period for your apps with self-renewing subscriptions in App Store Connect. Billing Grace Period allows you to allow subscribers whose auto renewal failed because of a payment problem to continue to access paid content from your app for a while while Apple tries to collect the payment. If Apple can collect the subscription within the grace period, there will be no interruption in the number of paid service days paid by the subscriber or your revenue.

Developers who own subscription applications can now implement support for the new billing grace period.