Subscriptions provide a way for users to purchase Meta Horizon Store content by
way of a recurring payment model. Offering subscriptions is a good option for
apps or games with frequent content updates or service-like features.
You may offer:
Free trial periods that automatically convert to recurring paid subscriptions
at the end of the free trial
Subscription term periods of 1, 3, 6, and 12 months
Subscription tiers with different combinations of premium content or
subscription periods
This guide covers the basics of subscriptions. For API details related to
implementing subscriptions in your app, see Server APIs for Subscriptions
(Unity,
Unreal,
Native).
Subscription statuses
Users receive email notifications about subscription changes when:
A trial subscription starts
A trial subscription is set to renew to a paid subscription in three days
An annual subscription is set to renew in 60 days
A paid subscription is bought
A subscription renews
A user cancels, reactivates, or upgrades a subscription
A subscription is extended or canceled by POST API
Trial subscriptions
Trial subscriptions automatically renew to paid subscriptions at the end of the
trial term.
Free Trial: Offer users free access to subscription content for a set
period. The subscription becomes a paid plan after the trial ends.
Intro Pricing: Offer a discounted subscription price for a limited time. The
subscription renews at the regular rate after the intro pricing period ends.
Grace period for payment issues
When a subscription fails to renew due to a payment issue, the subscriber
receives an email notification about the failed payment. The subscription stays
active for three more days, giving the subscriber time to restore their payment
method and maintain access. A user may cancel their subscription during the
grace period.
Expired subscriptions
If a subscription is canceled or not renewed after the three-day grace period,
it stops being active at the end of the billing term. Users can always
resubscribe by purchasing the subscription again.
After canceling their subscription, users retain access to the content for the
rest of the trial or paid billing term.
Reactivated subscriptions
If a subscription is canceled but the billing term hasn’t ended, the user can
un-cancel and reactivate it to maintain access. The next renewal date remains
the same, and the subscription returns to the auto-renewing billing cycle.
Subscription term periods and tiers
You can offer your customers different combinations of subscription tiers and
term periods. A tier is a specific offering at a set price point. A term period
is the duration of the subscription.
Single-tier recurring subscriptions. Your app has one subscription tier and
one term period.
Multiple-tier recurring subscriptions. Your app has one subscription tier and
multiple subscription term periods.
Multiple-tier and period subscriptions. Your app has multiple subscription
tiers and one term period.
Multiple-tier and period subscriptions. Your app has multiple tiers and
multiple term periods.
Your customers who purchase a subscription at one tier can upgrade or downgrade
to higher or lower tiers or even crossgrade, that is, change their subscription
to a different subscription period in the same tier.
When customers upgrade to a higher tier, they’re upgraded immediately and
receive a prorated refund for their lower-tier subscription. Downgrade and
crossgrade changes occur after the current subscription period ends.
Recommended subscription configuration
To ensure a quality user experience, subscriptions should be created in the
simplest configuration possible:
If you have a single subscription offering, create a single-tier subscription
and add terms as needed based on your billing strategy.
If you wish to offer multiple levels of user experience, create multiple tiers
on the same subscription and add terms to each as needed.
If you have multiple entirely separate subscription offerings, which is
unusual, create a separate subscription for each with the needed tiers and
terms. Please note that users cannot switch between separate subscriptions,
and it is possible for them to subscribe to more than one at once.
Supported subscription models
Your app must follow one of these three subscription models:
Free base app + subscription required to access full content
Free base app + subscription optional to access premium content
Paid base app + subscription optional to access premium content
Subscription models with a free base app allow try-before-you-buy type
interactions that can give users a sense of your app before they decide to
purchase a subscription. Because buyer confidence helps drive additional sales,
consider offering free trial periods or giving customers access to some free
content before committing to a subscription.
Expectations
Subscriptions are not supported with App Sharing. If multiple accounts are
sharing a headset, only the account that purchased the subscription can access
the subscriber-only content.
While in-app subscriptions can be purchased in-app without restriction, the
only subscriptions available for sale from an app’s product details page (PDP)
are those that you specifically select to sell on the Meta Horizon Store.
If the premium content includes downloadable content (DLC) as add-on content,
you must supply your own methods for hosting and downloading the DLC. DLC
hosted on the Meta Horizon platform cannot be linked to a subscription.
To modify or delete an existing subscription, please reach out to your Meta
Quest developer contact.
Create subscriptions
By offering subscriptions, you are obligated to accurately describe the benefits
of the subscription within the app and to fulfill the content or service for
your apps during each subscription period sold.
You can create subscriptions containing one or more subscription tiers and
periods, and each subscription can be linked to add-on IAP content. You can
offer its SKU for sale either as an in-app purchase (IAP) or
directly on the Meta Horizon Store. For
information about creating IAP, see
Add-ons - Downloadable Content and In-App Purchases.
If this is your first subscription for this app, click Create new
Subscription. Otherwise, if you already have an existing subscription tier,
click Add subscription tier.
Fill the form with particular attention to the following:
Level determines upgrades and downgrades between tiers. 1 is the lowest
tier. Going from a lower tier to a higher tier is an upgrade.
You must define at least one Subscription Term. If you selected a
Free Trial period, the trial period applies to all the term periods in
the tier.
If this subscription needs additional terms, click Add another
subscription term.
Intro offers can be used alongside free trials. New users will start with
the free trial, renew to the intro price at the end of the trial, and
finally renew to the full price at the end of the intro term.
If you are linking add-on content to the subscription, select it from
Add-ons.
When done entering the details for the subscription tier, select Publish.
If this subscription needs additional tiers, click Add subscription tier.
Sell on the Meta Horizon Store
When you fill out the Add Subscription Tier form, the options for Show in
Meta Horizon Store and Sell on Meta Horizon Store will be set to On by
default.
This means that every subscription tier will be listed for sale by default on
the product details page (PDP) of your app on the Meta Horizon Store across all
three surfaces (web, mobile, and VR). If you don’t want to sell subscriptions
from the PDP, you can always sell them from within your app as IAP. At least one
subscription must have sell in store on for the feature to be available to
users.
When developing with subscriptions, keep the following in mind:
Don’t show customers a subscription plan as IAP if they already purchased it
from the PDP. Your app should do an entitlement check to determine if the user
is already a subscriber before offering specific plans for sale in the app.
For more information on user entitlement checking, see Verify the User
docs(Unity,
Unreal,
Native).
Once subscribed, users who go to the PDP of your app will see a Manage
subscriptions button which will take them to their
Subscriptions page.
We recommend showing and selling all your subscription tiers on your app’s PDP.
However, you can choose which subscription plans are hidden when a user chooses
the Subscribe button of your app’s PDP. If you want to both show and sell a
subscription in the PDP you have to adjust those separate settings yourself.
The user experience
Users must first get the entitlement for an application by pressing the Get
button or purchasing the app, if it is not free. On entitlement, they will
automatically be prompted to subscribe. Users can subscribe at any time from the
PDP, where the Get will be replaced by a button that says Subscribe or
Free Trial, depending on whether a free trial is available.
To hide a subscription tier from the PDP, click the Show in Meta Horizon
Store toggle to Off.
Subscriptions promo codes
Promo codes can be created for subscriptions. The codes provide a percent-off
discount for a certain number of terms, with both the discount amount and the
number of terms configurable.
Promo codes are not compatible with intro offers. At this time, they are
developer-funded only. For more information on promo codes, see
Custom Promo Codes.
On the left-hand menu, click Growth > Promo Codes and click Create
New.
Mark the code as Active and fill out the fields, including name, code,
items, number of terms, discount amount, redemption limit, and dates for
which the code should be valid.
Click Publish and distribute your code to users
Redeeming a promo code:
Promo codes can be redeemed at the order confirmation screen when purchasing a
subscription, either in-app or when purchasing via PDP. Users simply need to
click Add promo code and enter the code, then complete the purchase. They
will receive the discount starting with their first paid subscription term.
Subscription churn deflection beta
You can now activate the self-serve churn deflection feature for your app. With
Churn Deflection, you have the opportunity to retain users attempting to cancel
their subscription by offering them a winback incentive of a free month’s
subscription, which appears within the cancellation flow. Observations indicate
that customers who accept these offers tend to remain subscribed, continuing to
pay for future months after their additional free trial period renews as paid.
Since the user does not pay for this free month (depending on their subscription
plan), activating this feature means you will not receive payment for the free
portion of churn deflection initiatives.
How churn deflection works
Customers on a monthly, bi-annual, and quarterly subscription plan will
receive one free month if they stay subscribed and pay their upcoming renewal.
Customers on an annual plan will receive three free months if they stay
subscribed and pay their upcoming renewal.
The option for Turn on Churn Deflection will be set to Off by default.
Simply turning on the toggle will enable the feature for your users. Since
this is still an early released feature, approximately 60% of users will
receive this.
Revoke a user subscription
If it becomes necessary to revoke a user’s subscription, organization members
with admin and developer roles may do so from the Subscriptions panel. Revoking
a subscription takes immediate effect and removes any access the user has to
subscription-dependent content.
A person whose subscription has been revoked is notified by email. No refunds
are given for revoked subscriptions.
You must know the owner_id of the person whose subscription needs to be
revoked.
At the top right, select ... > Revoke Subscription.
In the User ID box, enter the owner_id, and then select Terminate.
A confirmation dialog box appears.
Select Terminate again to confirm your decision to revoke the user’s
subscription.
Subscription referral beta
Activate the subscription referral feature for your app to leverage your
subscribers’ social networks and attract new subscribers.
Eligibility
Senders must be active subscribers. This also includes trial users and users
who have canceled but still have active subscription time remaining.
Recipients must have never subscribed before.
Rewards
Senders can earn a 1-month free extension to their current subscription when
recipients become paying subscribers.
Recipients can receive a 1-month free trial when they sign up. After this
trial, they will not be eligible for any default free trials set up by
developers.
All subscription SKUs must opt in to enable subscription referral for
your application
Click the Edit icon next to a subscription plan.
The option for Turn on Subscription Referral is set to OFF by default.
Toggle it ON to enable the feature for users.
All subscription SKUs must opt out to disable subscription referral for
your application. Upon deactivation, users will no longer be able to generate
new referral links, and existing referral links become ineffective
immediately. Users with accepted referrals can still receive the 1-month free
trial up to 14 days after deactivation.
