Google Play Subscription Offers Explained, With One Example App

Apple has five kinds of subscription offers. Google Play has one, plus a setting for who can get it.

That was the first thing that confused me in Play Console. I came from App Store Connect, where every discount has its own name and its own help page. On Google Play I found subscriptions, base plans, offers, phases, eligibility criteria and tags, all on one screen, and no idea which part was the discount.

If you read my post on Apple's five subscription offers, this is the Android twin. Same made-up app, same subscriber, Google's rules.

I checked every rule in this post against Google's help pages on 8 November 2026.

The short answer

• New customer offer: a free trial or a lower first price for people who never subscribed. Google checks who is eligible.
• Upgrade offer: a discount for people who already have another plan, like monthly to yearly. Google checks who is eligible.
• Developer determined offer: a discount your app gives to whoever your app picks, like people who left. Google checks nothing.
• Promo code: a code that gives a free trial of 3 to 90 days, for whoever you give it to.
• Retention and win-back offers in the Play Store: retention offers are rolling out, win-back offers are still in early access.

The first three are the same thing in Play Console: an offer. Only the eligibility setting is different.

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Six words you'll see in Play Console

• Subscription. The thing people pay for, like "Habit tracker Premium". It holds base plans.
• Base plan. One way to pay for it: a billing period and a price per country, like monthly at $9.99. A base plan can auto-renew, be prepaid, or (in a few countries) be paid in installments.
• Offer. A discount on one base plan. Google only lets you add offers to auto-renewing base plans.
• Phase. One step of an offer. A free trial, a single payment, or a lower price for 1 to 52 billing periods. An offer can have more than one, like 1 week free and then 3 months at half price.
• Eligibility. Who can buy the offer: new customers, people upgrading, or whoever your app decides.
• Tag. A label you put on offers, so your app knows which one to show when someone qualifies for more than one.

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Meet the example app, and Sam

Same app as in the Apple post: say you make a habit tracker. It has one subscription with two base plans: $9.99 a month and $59.99 a year. All the prices in this post are made up.

Sam uses an Android phone. Over a few months, Sam goes through four moments:

1. Sam finds your app and has never subscribed.
2. Sam subscribes and pays $9.99 a month.
3. Later, Sam opens the Play Store and taps Cancel.
4. Sam's subscription ends.

One thing to know before the offers. In my experience, on Android people buy a subscription inside your app, through Google's purchase sheet. Your app asks Google Play which offers this person can buy, shows them on your paywall, and passes the chosen one to the purchase. So for most offers, if your app doesn't show it, nobody sees it.

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1. New customer offers: before someone subscribes

What it is. A free trial, a lower first price, or both, on someone's first subscription.

Who gets it. You pick one of two rules: "never had this subscription" or "never had any subscription in this app". Google checks it, and only gives your app the offer for people who match.

Where they see it. On your paywall, and then on Google's purchase sheet.

Sam's story. Sam opens your paywall and sees "1 week free, then $9.99 a month", and starts the trial.

Good to know. Free trials can be anything from 3 days to 3 years. Google checks that the person has a valid payment method before the trial starts. Someone who comes back to the same subscription later doesn't get the trial or the intro price again. My guide to pricing introductory offers covers how big the discount should be.

2. Upgrade offers: while someone subscribes, to switch plans

What it is. A discount for someone who already pays for one plan and moves to another.

Who gets it. People who currently have a plan you choose, optionally with a specific billing period. Google checks it.

Where they see it. In your app, wherever you show plan changes.

Sam's story. Sam has paid monthly for 4 months. Your app shows "Switch to yearly: first year at 50% off". This is almost word for word Google's own example.

Good to know. You can let people buy an upgrade offer once or an unlimited number of times. When someone switches, you also choose when they pay: right away, or at their next billing date.

3. Developer determined offers: whoever your app picks

What it is. An offer where Google checks nothing. Your app decides who gets it, with your own rules.

Who gets it. Anyone your app shows it to. Google's help page names "second-chance free trials" and "win-back offers for lapsed subscribers" as examples.

Where they see it. Only inside your app. Google says these offers can't be bought anywhere else.

Sam's story. Sam cancelled and the subscription ended. Two months later Sam opens the app again, and your app shows "Welcome back: 3 months at half price". On Apple this would be a win-back offer. On Google, today, it's a developer determined offer with a tag like WINBACK-50-OFF, which is Google's own example.

Good to know. This is the most flexible offer, and the one with the most work. Your app or your server must know who left, when, and what they already got. It also only reaches people who open your app again.

4. Promo codes: free trials for anyone you give a code to

What it is. A code, or a link with the code inside, that gives a free trial. Google's help page says it in one line: "Promo codes offer free trials to subscriptions and not free subscriptions."

Who gets it. Whoever has the code. People who subscribed before and left can still get a free trial with a one-time code.

Where they see it. Wherever you share it. People redeem one-time codes in the Play Store or in your app. Custom codes, like a word you pick, only work in your app and only for people who never subscribed.

The example. This one isn't about Sam. You sponsor a productivity podcast, and its listeners get a link with a code for a 30-day free trial.

If you don't have an audience to share codes with yet, that's why I built Premium App Drops. It's free for developers. Every Friday, starting 27 November 2026, people who want premium apps claim codes there, one per person. It takes free offers, like free months of a subscription or a lifetime unlock, for apps on the App Store and Google Play.

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Good to know. The trial can be 3 to 90 days, and it replaces any trial the plan already has instead of adding to it. You can make up to 10,000 one-time codes per quarter per subscription, and one promo code per subscription, for a single base plan or offer. A promotion can run for up to a year.

5. Retention and win-back offers in the Play Store: rolling out, not for everyone yet

On 29 September 2026, Google announced two things that sound a lot like Apple's: retention offers inside the Play Store cancellation flow, with an option to suggest a cheaper plan instead, and win-back offers that reach lapsed subscribers directly on the Play Store.

At the time, Google said many of these features were in an early access program, "in active testing with select partners", open through a Google Play partner manager. In its Q3 2026 roundup, Google says developers "can now" show discounts in the Play Store cancellation flow. It doesn't say all developers, and it doesn't mention win-back offers. I couldn't find a Play Console help page for either one, Google hasn't given a date, and I haven't used them.

So check your own Play Console under your subscriptions before you plan around them. If they're not there, keeping someone who cancels means a developer determined offer in your app, sent at the right moment.

What everyone has already: Google asks people who cancel in the Play Store why they're leaving, and shows the answers in Play Console. Pause is on by default, so people can pause a subscription for one week to three months. And anyone can tap Resubscribe in the Play Store for up to a year after their subscription ends. Resubscribe is at the normal price, not an offer.

Two pairs people mix up

New customer offer or promo code? Both give free trials. A new customer offer is for people who never subscribed, and Google checks that. A one-time promo code works for people who subscribed before too, and starts outside your app.

Upgrade offer or developer determined offer? Who checks. For an upgrade offer Google checks the person's current plan. For a developer determined offer your app does all the checking, so it can reward anyone, including people who left.

Which offer do I need?

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And the limits, in one place:

• Base plans and offers: up to 250 per subscription, 50 active at the same time.
• Free trials: 3 days to 3 years. Promo code trials: 3 to 90 days.
• Lower price phases: 1 to 52 billing periods.
• Promo codes: 10,000 one-time codes per quarter per subscription, one promo code per subscription, a promotion up to a year long.

These come from Google's help pages on base plans and offers, creating subscriptions, promo codes and price changes, read on 8 November 2026.

How Google Play is different from Apple

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If you ship on both stores, these are the differences that change what you do:

• Prices can change. On Google you can edit an offer's price later. Only new buyers get the new price, people who already bought it keep theirs. On Apple, four of five offers lock their price.
• Nothing can be deleted. Google doesn't let you delete an offer or reuse its ID. You deactivate it, and current subscribers keep it. So pick IDs you won't regret, like yearly-upgrade-50.
• One offer, three rules. Apple has a type per moment. Google has one offer and an eligibility setting.
• Retention and win-back. Apple has both for every developer. On Google, retention offers are rolling out and win-back offers are in early access, so for now you build the win-back yourself.

Mistakes I'd avoid with your first offers

Expecting a second free trial. A new customer offer is for people who never had the subscription. To give someone another try, use a developer determined offer or a promo code.

Using a fixed price when your base plan is localized. Play Console has three ways to price an offer: a fixed amount like $5, an amount off like $1 off, or a percentage off like 50%. If you type a fixed amount and use "Update all prices", Google converts it to every currency with the exchange rate. If you localized your base plan lower in some countries, like India, I think that converted offer can end up more expensive than the plan. Google refuses that: we got an error for an offer priced exactly at its base plan, so even equal isn't allowed. A percentage discount is taken from each country's own base plan price, so it follows your localized prices.

Lowering a base plan below its own offer. This one cost me a whole push. In July, PricePush lowered the base plan of one of my own apps from $4.99 to $3.99 in one country, where an offer still cost $4.99. Google rejected the whole base plan update, all 164 regions, because of that one offer. Lower the offers first, then the plan.

Forgetting the offer is only in your app. Except promo codes, Google offers appear where your app shows them. If your paywall code doesn't ask Google Play for offers, nobody sees your free trial.

Those last three are why PricePush handles Google offers. It sets offer prices in every country from the base plan you localized and keeps each one below its base plan. When a plan price goes down, it updates the offers first. It doesn't do promo codes, and Google's new retention and win-back offers aren't available to it.

Which offer should you set up first?

Here's the order I'd use for a first subscription app on Google Play.

1. A new customer offer with a free trial. It's the one most people will see, and Google checks eligibility for you.
2. An upgrade offer from monthly to yearly, once you have monthly subscribers.
3. A developer determined offer for people who left, when you know how to reach them in your app.
4. Promo codes, when you have a newsletter, a podcast or an event to share them with.

That order is my opinion from running my own apps. Google's rules work the same whichever one you start with.

Try it on one app

If you have a subscription on Google Play, you can try PricePush free on one app with the Starter plan: 7 days, 2 pushes, no credit card. That's enough to see your base plan and offer prices in every country before anything changes. The plans are here if you need more apps.

Antonio

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