Google Play Subscriptions policy rejection: trial terms, price disclosure and the cancellation path

Your paywall does not say enough, or it says it where the user will not read it before paying. Play's Subscriptions policy is a disclosure policy: far less concerned with what you charge than with whether the user knew the price, the billing frequency, the renewal, and how to get out, at the moment they tapped subscribe.

How it is worded

Sometimes a console rejection on the release, more often a policy email. The wording is generic and leaves you guessing which sentence you are missing:

"Your app subjects users to a deceptive or manipulative purchase experience."

"Your app's subscription offer does not clearly disclose the terms of the offer prior to purchase."

If a screenshot is attached, that screenshot is the finding. Look at what is visible in it and what is not.

What it means

The policy names the required disclosures. You must:

"clearly and explicitly disclose your offer terms, the cost of your subscription, the frequency of your billing cycle, the automatic renewal terms, whether a subscription is required to use the app, and any other material information about the subscription"

For trials and introductory pricing, three further items:

"how and when a free trial will convert to a paid subscription"

"how much the paid subscription will cost"

"how a user can cancel if they do not want to convert to a paid subscription"

On cancellation, the app must "clearly disclose how a user can manage or cancel their subscription" and provide "access to an easy-to-use, online method to cancel the subscription". Google accepts either "a link to Google Play's Subscription Center" or "direct access to your cancellation process".

The prohibited side reads as a list of things reviewers look for. The policy bans "apps that subject users to deceptive or manipulative purchase experiences", and gives as examples subscriptions "that do not inform users they will be automatically renewed and charged", "Multiple screens in the purchase flow that lead users into accidentally clicking the subscribe button", and offers "that do not clearly explain how long the free trial or introductory pricing will last".

The operative words are "prior to purchase" and "clearly". Terms in a linked document, behind an information icon, or after the purchase sheet do not count.

Why it happens

• The trial length is on the paywall but the conversion is not. "7 days free" without "then £39.99 per year, renewing automatically" is the single most common failure.
• Price is shown per month for an annual plan. "£3.33/month" for a product billed at £39.99 once a year is misleading unless the actual charge and its frequency appear with equal weight.
• The renewal disclosure is in small grey text below the fold. No font size is specified anywhere, but a reviewer scrolling your paywall on a phone either sees the terms or does not.
• There is no cancellation instruction in the app. Users are expected to know about Play's Subscription Center. The policy requires you to tell them.
• The flow has more than one tap that looks like consent. A plan screen, then a confirm screen, then the Google sheet, with the primary button in the same position each time, is the pattern the policy names.
• Close controls are hidden or delayed. A paywall you cannot dismiss for five seconds, or whose X is a low-contrast glyph in a corner, reads as manipulative even if every price is correct.
• A paywall appears before the user can see anything. Requiring a subscription is allowed, but you must disclose "whether a subscription is required to use the app".

How to fix it

1. Screenshot your own paywall on the smallest phone you support. Do not scroll. Everything in the required list must be legible in that one frame. This finds the violation in most apps within a minute.
2. Write one disclosure sentence and put it above the button. Plain form: "£39.99 per year after a 7 day free trial. Renews automatically until cancelled. Cancel any time in Google Play."
3. Take the price from ProductDetails, returned by Play Billing, rather than a string in your code. Prices differ by country and change without your app shipping.
4. Give equal visual weight to the real charge. If you show a per-month equivalent for an annual plan, the annual total must be at least as prominent.
5. Add a cancellation path in the app. A link in Settings or the account screen that opens Play's Subscription Center satisfies the requirement, and it is a single intent.
6. Cut the purchase flow to one consent tap. Select the plan, read the terms, buy. Remove any interstitial whose primary button sits where the previous screen's primary button was.
7. Make the close control obvious from the first frame. Full contrast, adequate hit area, no delay.
8. Disclose the trial's end date, not just its length. "Free until 24 August, then £39.99/year" removes the ambiguity entirely.
9. Check the store listing matches, and test on a fresh account with no prior entitlement, so you see what a new user sees rather than your own grandfathered state.

What to send

The subscription offer screen now discloses, above the purchase button and without scrolling: the full price and currency for the selected plan, the billing frequency, the free trial duration and the date it converts, the automatic renewal, and how to cancel. Prices are read from Play Billing ProductDetails so they are correct per region. A cancellation link to Google Play's Subscription Center has been added at Settings > Subscription. The purchase flow is now a single confirmation step. Screenshots of the current build on a 5 inch device are attached.

Appeal, or fix and resubmit?

For a rejection, fix and resubmit. Appeals here are slower than shipping a corrected paywall, and the correction is usually a day of work.

Appeal only when you believe the reviewer looked at the wrong screen. This happens: a reviewer can land on a legacy paywall behind a feature flag, or a remote-config variant you no longer serve. If so, say which variant they saw, when it was retired, and how to reach the current one.

Do not appeal a paywall you designed to convert on ambiguity. Reviewers see thousands of these and the patterns are well known. The version that discloses everything plainly also tends to reduce refunds and chargebacks, which is the argument worth making internally.

One honest limit: Google publishes no measurements. No required font size, no minimum contrast ratio, no maximum number of screens. Anyone quoting you a pixel value for this policy has invented it. What exists is a legibility judgement made by a reviewer on a phone, so the only reliable strategy is to make the disclosure impossible to miss.

AppSubmit's rejection explainer separates which sub-clause of the Subscriptions policy was actually cited from the surrounding boilerplate, and lists the disclosures still missing from your paywall screenshots. The paywall itself is yours to change.