Promotions, or
promo codes
, enable you to give one-time products or trials
to subscriptions free-of-charge to a limited number of users. The user enters
a promo code, either in your app or in the Google Play Store app, and receives
the item or subscription trial at no cost.
Within the Play Console, you can create the following types of promo codes:
- One-time use codes
: These are automatically-generated unique codes that
users can redeem only once. Users redeem these codes either directly from
the Play Store or from within your app.
- Custom codes
: You can specify custom codes that can be redeemed multiple
times up to your predefined limit. Custom codes are available only for
subscriptions and can be redeemed only by users who have not previously
subscribed.
You can use promo codes in many ways to creatively engage with users,
including the following:
- You might distribute cards with promo codes at an event, and users would
enter their promo codes to unlock a special in-game item.
- You might give codes to employees so they can share them with their friends
and family.
- You might send a promo code to people who buy your app during a certain
period of time.
For subscriptions, note the following:
- Promo codes offer free trials to subscriptions and not free subscriptions.
- Promotions do not extend other free trials. If a subscription begins with a
free trial without requiring a promo code, a promotion would override the
original free trial length.
- Users who would otherwise not be eligible for free trials?for example, users
who had purchased a subscription in the past but are no longer
subscribed?are still eligible for a free trial through a promotion.
- You can create only one promo code per subscription product. That is, you
can create a promo code only for a single base plan or offer.
Users can redeem promo codes in the Google Play Store up until a promotion
end date that you specify in the Play Console. Promotions can last up to
one year.
Before implementing a promotion, be sure to consider the following:
- For one-time products, you can create up to
500 promo codes per quarter
across all managed products in an app. You can use different combinations of
promo codes that include one or more one-time products. Examples include
the following:
- 500 promo codes for a single one-time product.
- 100 promo codes, each for five different one-time products.
- For subscription promotions, you can create up to
10,000
one-time use codes
per quarter per subscription product
. This
limit does not count toward the limit of promo codes for one-time products.
- When creating a subscription promotion with custom codes, you can choose a
redemption limit between 2,000 and 99,999.
Creating and managing promotions
To learn how to set up and manage promotions, see
Create Promotions
.
User redemption flow
Once a user has a promo code, they can redeem it in one of the following ways:
- In your app:
The user can initiate the purchase by clicking the down
arrow next to the form of payment in the Google Play purchase screen and
then clicking the
Redeem
link to type in the code.
- In the Play store:
The user can manually enter the code in the Google
Play Store by clicking the Play Store left navigation menu and tapping
Redeem Code
.
- The user can also skip manual code entry by instead following a
deep link
to the Google Play Store.
As an example, figure 1 shows a purchase screen for a subscription. To enter
a promo code, tap the arrow next to the current payment method to show the
Payment methods
screen, as shown in figure 2. Next, tap
Redeem code
to go to the
Redeem a gift card or promo code
screen, as shown in figure 3.
You can then enter your promo code on this screen and tap
Redeem
to finish.
For subscription promo codes, note the following:
- Custom codes can be redeemed only from within your app, while one-time codes
can be redeemed through both your app and the Play store.
- After the user redeems the code, they still need to purchase the
subscription with the code applied. A valid form of payment is required
for the subscription, and the subscription will auto-renew at the end of
the promo code free trial period.
- If using Billing Library version 2.0 or higher, a user who redeems a
one-time code from the Play store is immediately asked to purchase the
subscription through the Play store. This is an out-of-app purchase, so be
sure that your app can
handle these purchases gracefully
.
- If your app does not yet support Billing Library 2.0, the user must
download your app, navigate to the correct subscription, and then purchase
the subscription from within your app to use the promotion code.
Implementing promo codes
To ensure your app is ready to handle promo codes, your app needs to
properly handle redemptions that occur outside of your app. To learn more,
see
Processing purchases
,
Fetching purchases
, and
Handling purchases made outside of your app
in
Integrate the Google Play Billing Library into your app
.
Deep link
You can also share a promo code by generating a URL that sends the user to
the Google Play Store and auto-populates the
Enter code
field. Use the
following format for a promo code URL:
https://play.google.com/redeem?code=promo_code
Figure 4 shows the Google Play app's
Redeem Code
dialog:
After the user presses
Redeem
, if the latest version of your app is
installed, the Google Play Store prompts the user to open the app. Otherwise,
the Google Play Store prompts the user to update or download your app.
Testing promo codes
To test your promo code implementation, see
Test promo codes
.