Google Play - Monthly subscription for my app is charged daily

Question

I have an Android app published in Google Play that contains In-app subscriptions. I have a monthly and yearly subscription, I have configured it in the Developer console this way:

The issue is: when the user is going to subscribe, Google Play is displaying the payment gateway on this way:

Why it is saying they are charging $19.99 daily if the subscription is monthly?

This is the invoice subscribed users are receiving every day:

In my code, I am not defining anything related to the price, is this way:

inappbilling.subscribe(function (data) {
    $rootScope.logThis("inappbilling plugin - subscribe: " + JSON.stringify(data), "info", "inappbilling", "subscribe");
    subscriptionDone(data);
}, function (errorInfo) {
    $rootScope.logThis("inappbilling plugin ERROR - subscribe: " + JSON.stringify(errorInfo), "error", "inappbilling", "subscribe");
    subscriptionError(errorInfo);
}, subscriptionType.productId);

I'm only specifying the subscription id that is correct. How can I set payment to monhtly instead of daily?

Thanks!

Anastatius

Answer 1

For anyone arriving here looking for a solution, I finally find the reason by myself: if you are a tester and your account is in the list of accounts that can get subscriptions by free, then the subscription is not charged and it will be daily. But even if you have the production version!

Google is not documenting this and is not answering in support (many many thanks Google, you wasted a lot of my time).

Anastatius

Thanks, I had the same problem. To my alpha tester it says that the amount is charged daily although I have created a monthly subscription. The funny thing is, if the alpha tester accesses his Play Store account from a PC (not from the app on his phone), then it shows the charge per month, not day! – Bibliomancy

Still happens in October 2017! I was alarmed when the message came up that it would be charged daily, but I'll take your word that everything is okay. – Suanne

Still happening in October 2021 – Towbin

Still happening in May 2022 .. honestly THIS is why Google are always playing catch-up with Apple in the mobile tech/dev space. Now it's per 5 mins instead of daily - even though the subscription is set to monthly or quartelry. – Nurserymaid

@Nurserymaid happening to me too, do you get it working on the production as expected? – Winstonwinstonn

Still happening in Feb 2024......... – Legatee

Answer 2

Like Jose said himself, this behaviour is because the user is marked as a license tester in the Google Play Developer Console.

Since this question was asked, Google has published a table about the changed periods when you are a license tester (here: https://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/test#renewals).

At the time of writing this, the table contains:

Production subscription period	Test subscription renewal
1 week	5 minutes
1 month	5 minutes
3 months	10 minutes
6 months	15 minutes
1 year	30 minutes

Balancer