How to attach subscriptions to a version submission

Here's the thing that trips up almost every first-time founder with a paid app: your app and your subscription are reviewed as two separate items. Building the paywall into the app isn't enough. If you don't also submit the subscription itself for review, the reviewer opens your app, taps your "Start free trial" button, and nothing works, because the product doesn't exist yet as far as the App Store is concerned.

That's a rejection. Usually under Guideline 2.1: App Completeness, because part of your app didn't function during review.

Why subscriptions get reviewed at all

Anything you sell inside an iOS app (subscriptions, one-time unlocks, credits) has to go through Apple's payment system. Apple calls these in-app purchases (IAPs for short), and a subscription is just one kind of in-app purchase. Because Apple processes the money, Apple reviews the product: its name, its price, its description, and whether the app around it presents it honestly.

The rule that surprises people is this, straight from Apple's documentation: your first in-app purchase of each type must be submitted together with a new app version. Your first auto-renewable subscription can't be reviewed on its own; it rides along with an app submission. Once that first one is approved, you can submit additional subscriptions by themselves.

This makes sense from the reviewer's chair: they can't judge a subscription without an app to see it in.

Where subscriptions live in App Store Connect

App Store Connect is Apple's website for managing your app, at appstoreconnect.apple.com. Inside it:

1. Go to Apps and select your app.
2. In the sidebar, look for the Monetization group. That's where Subscriptions lives (one-time purchases are under In-App Purchases, just above it).
3. This is where you create the subscription: its reference name, its product ID (the identifier your app's code uses to find it), duration, price, and a localized name and description that customers will see.

A subscription also belongs to a subscription group, Apple's container for plans a customer can switch between, like monthly and yearly. Even a single plan needs a group. If the group hasn't been approved yet, it gets reviewed along with your first subscription.

How to attach it to your version

First, the subscription's details need to be complete; App Store Connect flags anything missing before it will let the item go to review, most often the review screenshot or the localized description.

Then attach it:

1. Open the subscription and choose Add for Review.
2. Because it's your first, you'll be asked to pick the platform and the app version it should be reviewed with.
3. When you submit that version for review, check the submission summary: the subscription should be listed as one of the items alongside the app version itself. If it isn't there, it isn't being reviewed.

That last check matters. The submission screen lists every item going to review together. An app version with no subscription attached will sail through review, and then your paywall sells a product that was never approved.

The rejection you get when you skip this

If your app shows a paywall but the subscription wasn't attached, the reviewer sees a purchase flow that dead-ends. That's typically written up as Guideline 2.1: Performance: App Completeness, since Apple's own guideline text says in-app purchases must be "complete, up-to-date, visible to the reviewer and functional."

Related rejections in the same neighborhood: if you routed payment around Apple entirely, say with a link to pay on your website for features used in the app, that's Guideline 3.1.1: In-App Purchase. And the subscription's own design (minimum seven-day periods, ongoing value, clear terms before purchase) is governed by Guideline 3.1.2: Subscriptions.

One more habit worth building: in the App Review Information section of your version page, tell the reviewer where the paywall is and how to reach it. Apple's guidelines say plainly that if your in-app purchases aren't obvious, your review can be delayed or rejected. Two sentences of notes cost you nothing.