RevenueCat proudly helps create an easy way to keep track of all your in-app transactions. However, although we manage your purchases, we don't process the payments for your subscriptions and non-renewing products.
The differences are best explained by understanding how RevenueCat interacts during the purchasing phase of a customer buying a subscription or non-renewing product.
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When a user goes to your paywall, the SDK uses the product IDs from your current offering and retrieves the product information from the respective stores ( Apple/Google/Stripe).
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When the user selects a product to purchase, the SDK gets the product ID to send it to the store to purchase
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The store then processes the payment (charges the user via their payment option) and adds this product to the customer's receipt.
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When the customer's receipt changes, RevenueCat has listeners that update the `PurchaserInfo` object (allowing customers to get access to the product/feature they purchased) and updates our backend with this information (updates the customer profile).
Any time changes are made to a customer's receipt, such as through cancellations, renewals, and billing issues, RevenueCat will be updated with this information.
As RevenueCat is not a payment processor, this means we can not:
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Change someone's billing information
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Give a discount to a subscription/non-renewing purchase
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Pause a subscription
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Refund Apple purchases
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Cancel subscriptions with Apple
Some exceptions/workarounds include:
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Active Android subscriptions may be refunded and revoked via the REST API or directly through the RevenueCat dashboard.
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You can defer a subscription with Google via the REST API
