In-App Purchase Blocks (with RevenueCat)

Overview

In-app purchases (IAP) refer to the ability to offer additional content or features within a mobile app for users to buy using real money. This provides a monetization strategy for app developers, allowing them to generate revenue from their apps. It's a way to offer users the option to enhance their app experience by purchasing extra items or features, such as digital goods, subscriptions, and premium content.

Prerequisites

Publishing an app to the App Store and Google Play Store with in-app purchase blocks requires accounts with the following:

Compatibility

• In-app purchases are supported on the Android and iOS platforms.

• In-app purchases are not supported in web apps.

• You cannot test in-app purchases with the Thunkable Live app.

Migrating to the New IAP Blocks

If your app utilized the old in-app purchase (IAP) blocks, you’ll need to remove the keys from the old IAP component, remove the old blocks, replace them with the new IAP blocks, and create and configure an account with . These updates are needed before you publish an app with IAP functionality. If you currently have a published app with IAP capabilities, it will remain active. However, you cannot re-publish your app until the IAP blocks have been updated.

Which IAP Blocks do I have?

If you don’t know which version of the blocks you’ve used, we can help! Look at the IAP blocks in your project and compare them to the images below.

Old IAP Blocks

Each of the old IAP blocks has dropdown options. If your app has these blocks, you’ll need to update them.

New IAP Blocks

All of the new versions of the IAP blocks are purple and do not have dropdown options. If your app has these blocks, no block update is needed!

Migrate to Improved IAP Blocks

To migrate from the old in-app purchase blocks to the improved in-app purchase blocks:

1. Delete the old in-app purchase blocks.

2. Under the Advanced heading, click the gear icon associated with your existing IAP component.

3. Click Delete.

Order of Operations

You must follow the steps outlined below in the order they're listed.

This documentation assumes that you are publishing to both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. If this isn't accurate, ignore the platform-specific instructions for the other platform.

1. RevenueCat Account Setup

What is RevenueCat?

is a platform that is used to manage in-app subscriptions and purchases. It provides tools and services to handle subscription billing, manage user entitlements, and analyze revenue data. This platform simplifies implementing and managing in-app purchases and subscriptions, making it easier for you to monetize your apps effectively.

RevenueCat Setup

1. Create a . Additional instructions are available here: .

2. Configure your RevenueCat project and apps. Instructions are available here: .

2. Connect Thunkable and RevenueCat

Connecting your Thunkable and RevenueCat accounts requires copying and pasting API keys between the two accounts. We recommend having two tabs open concurrently, one signed in to RevenueCat and the other to Thunkable with your project open.

To connect your Thunkable and RevenueCat accounts:

1. Navigate to your RevenueCat tab.

2. Click Projects in the header.
3. Select your project from the dropdown.

3. Add an IAP Block to Your Thunkable Project and Publish

Add One IAP Block to Your Thunkable Project

To access the in-app purchase blocks:

1. Navigate to the Blocks tab.

2. Under the App Features heading, click In-App Purchase.

3. A drawer of in-app purchase blocks opens.

Publish Your App

For more on publishing your app, please see these docs:

4. Configure Products

Store Configuration

Products are what your app's users purchase. They are the individual SKUs (stock-keeping units) used to identify and track your inventory or stock. The stores (Apple and Google) process these SKUs and charge the user.

Your products must be configured for each store you intend to sell with. This is done within the respective stores.

Google Play Store

Product configuration for Android devices is done in the Google Play Console, Google's central hub for managing app releases, testing, in-app purchases, and more.

Google Play Product Setup

To set up your in-app purchases in your Google Play Console:

1. Log into your account.

2. Click Products under the Monetize heading in the sidebar.

3. Select In-app products or Subscriptions depending on what your app offers. We'll provide instructions for each below.

.

Apple App Store

Agreements, Tax, and Banking

To sell iOS products, you must sign Apple's most recent Paid Applications Agreement and fill out your bank and tax information. This is located at App Store Connect > Agreements, Tax, and Banking. This needs to be completed before you can test any purchases.

iOS Product Setup

Follow these instructions to set up your in-app purchases in App Store Connect: .

5. Map Products in RevenueCat

RevenueCat uses an Entitlements system to control access to premium features and Offerings to manage the set of products you offer customers.

Entitlements are the level of access that a customer is "entitled" to after purchasing a specific product. Offerings are a simple way to organize the in-app products you wish to "offer" and configure them remotely.

Features available for you to add on RevenueCat:

• Offerings - only create one
• Products - select either a subscription or a one-time purchase
• Entitlements

Features available on RevenueCat but not supported by Thunkable:

• Metadata

• Paywalls

6. Add In-App Purchase Blocks

To access the in-app purchase blocks:

1. Navigate to the Blocks tab.

2. Under the App Features heading, click In-App Purchase.

3. A drawer of in-app purchase blocks opens.

Block: In App Purchase Offerings

The "in app purchase offerings" block has two outputs: the standard error output and offerings.

Output: Offerings

The "offerings" output block returns information about the products users can purchase.

This information is primarily used to:

• Display products on the screen

• Make purchases with the "buy in app purchase package" block

Sample Block Combination

Block: Buy In App Purchase Package

The "buy in app purchase package" block has three outputs: the standard error output, purchase, and user cancelled.

Sample Block Combination

In the block combination below, the "in app purchase offerings" block retrieves the "offerings" output. You can see the contents of this block's output here: .

Within the "offerings" output, the content you need is within “availablePackages”, an array that holds one or multiple packages. This is an example of multiple packages within “availablePackages”:

It can be viewed and understood in the simplified way below.

To purchase Package_1, you must get that package from the offering’s object using the “get property of object” block. Then, you can direct it with the string “availablePackages” followed by the index of the package we want purchased. In this case, we want Package_1, which has an index of 0 in an array. The final string will be “availablePackages.0”. For Package_2, it would be “availablePackages.1”.

Block: In App Purchase Customer Info

The "in app purchase customer info" block has two outputs: the standard error output and customer info.

Output: Customer Info

The "customer info" output block returns information on the items the user has purchased. This information can be used within the Thunkable app to check for and give the corresponding purchased item/feature.

Sample Block Combination

Block: Restore In App Purchases

The "restore in app purchases" block has two outputs: the standard error output and customer info.

Output: Customer Info

The "customer info" output block returns information on the items the user has purchased. This information can be used within the Thunkable app to check for and give the corresponding purchased item/feature.

Sample Block Combination

7. Publish Project

8. Test App

To test the IAP blocks you must publish your app to the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. You cannot test IAP with web preview or the Thunkable Live app.

App Store (iOS)

On iOS, you must submit to the App Store via TestFlight to test the features. You can read more about TestFlight here: .

TestFlight creates a sandbox environment automatically. When you send your update to the app store, you can test it without having it go to the live version.

Play Store (Android)

On Android, publish to the Play Store via internal beta testing. You can read more about internal beta testing in the Play Store here: .

You have to upload the APK or AAB file to the Play Store console before you can add any In-App Purchases.

There are two ways you can test how a pre-release app functions on the Google Play store: You can publish an app to the alpha or beta distribution channels. This makes the app available on the Google Play store, but only to the testers you put on a "whitelist."

In a few cases, you can test Google Play functionality with an unpublished app. For example, you can test an unpublished app's in-app billing support by using static responses, special reserved product IDs that always return a specific result (like "purchased" or "refunded").

Managing Subscriptions

At this time, there are no blocks to support in-app subscription management by the user.

Users can manage their own subscriptions in the Google Play Store or Apple App Store.

We recommend including instructions in your app or app’s website that outline the processes below.

Android Subscription Management

Cancel, pause, or change a subscription on Google Play

1. Open the Google Play app .

2. At the top right, tap the profile icon.

3. Tap Payments & subscriptions Subscriptions.

Read more about managing your Android subscriptions .

iOS Subscription Management

Change or cancel your App Store subscriptions

1. Open the App Store app on your iOS device or on a computer

   • Sign in to the App Store if necessary

2. Tap or your profile picture at the top right, then tap Subscriptions.

Read more about managing your iOS subscriptions .