Skip to main content
Question

Subscription Review Stuck in Loop with App Store Connect

  • November 17, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 56 views
W
Forum|alt.badge.img

Hi

I'm hitting a major roadblock with App Store Connect and was hoping someone could help.

I originally submitted my app with some old subscriptions, which got stuck in "Waiting for Review." To fix it, I uploaded a new build and added three brand new subscriptions. They briefly showed as "Ready for Submission," but then reverted back to "Waiting for Review" again.

How is the App Store review team supposed to approve the app if the paywall can't load without the subscriptions being approved first? This seems like a circular dependency. I've seen tons of other devs complaining about the exact same issue online.

Also, are subscription approvals truly separate from the actual app approval process? It feels like they're tied together, but I'm not sure.

Can someone explain if they’ve been able to resolve this or is it just a case of hounding the apple review team to approve my subscriptions?

Thanks

    This post has been closed for comments

    2 replies

    guilherme
    RevenueCat Staff
    Forum|alt.badge.img+6
    • guilherme
    • RevenueCat Staff
    • November 19, 2025

    Hey ​@wrotenodocs-766282,

    Unfortunately, Apple’s sandbox environment is notoriously flaky - there are regular outages and sometimes purchases can get hung up in their system. Even worse is that Apple’s reviewers use this unstable environment for App Review, which can cause issues when the reviewer tests in-app purchases like subscriptions. I would recommend re-submitting your app for review (some developers have submitted the same binary up to a dozen times before getting through).
     
    Also, their "Next Steps" is unfortunately a generic message that doesn't apply to RevenueCat since we always validate against the production App Store first, as they recommend.
     
    Just to clarify, there's nothing you as a developer or RevenueCat can do to resolve these errors except retrying later/resubmitting. The good news is that this typically only happens when an app is being launched for the first time - subsequent updates typically work as expected for the reviewer.
     
    To be sure, have you submitted your App with the In-App Purchases/Subscriptions attached? Bear in mind that to make sure that Apple can see and review the subscriptions correctly, you must send it together with your app binary the first time. To do this, you need to include it in this section:
     
    ?name=Screenshot+2025-02-13+at+16.59.59.png
     
    As I see your products in the RevenueCat Dashboard as In Review, this could be the cause and currently ongoing (and hopefully get approved!).

    We also tend to recommend for the first validate/review the In-App Purchases/Subscriptions and before  the reviewer gets to fully test the app, a note saying: 

    Please review the submitted In-App Purchases and/or Subscriptions before reviewing the submitted application. Thank you!

     
    Additionally, we have our App Subscription Launch Checklist, which would be valuable to sanity check too: https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/test-and-launch/launch-checklist

    I hope this helps! We understand how frustrating this can be, but hopefully it gets sorted soon.

    Best,

    Gui, Developer Support Engineer @ RevenueCat
    W
    W
    Forum|alt.badge.img

    Hey ​@guilherme 

    Thanks for the advice! It’s mostly sorted now, I just waited and tested on a physical device, and the paywall/products are showing up. The sandbox stuff is annoying but apparently normal for first launches. The App Store review process really feels like jumping through rigid hoops rather than understanding the app’s use case. Thanks for the tip on resubmitting and leaving a note for the reviewer, I’ll remember that next time. Also, I just saw that I can add a web payment option and skip Apple’s 30% cut. Nice

    guilherme
    Terms & ConditionsCookie settingsAccessibility statement