As of 6 March 2024, and subject to meeting the programme requirements below and section 9 of our Payments policy, developers can sign up for a new external offers programme if they want to lead users in the European Economic Area (EEA) outside the app, including to promote offers for in-app digital features and services. See details below and visit our developer integration guide to get started.
The external offers programme allows developers of Google Play-distributed apps to lead users in the European Economic Area (EEA) outside the app, including to promote offers for in-app features and services, subject to Google Play's payments policy. Developers must meet the below eligibility and requirements, and complete their enrolment in this programme prior to promoting external offers. Participating developers are subject to our payments policy and the applicable service fees described below, which support our investments in Play and Android, will continue to apply.
Eligibility
In order to be eligible for this programme:
- Developer must be registered as a business.
Requirements
Developers participating in this programme must comply with the following requirements:
- Limit external offers to users in the EEA.
- External offers must only direct users to the developer's own digital features or services.
- Provide all destination URLs through Play Console.
- Enrol and get approval for your app(s) in the external offers programme as defined below.
- Integrate with the external offers APIs to direct users outside the app, including calling these APIs so that Google can surface the required information screen and developers can report applicable transactions.
- Provide customer support and refund methods for users completing external transactions through an external offer, and provide a process to dispute unauthorised transactions.
- Play store listings must not include information regarding purchases outside the app to minimise any possible user confusion.
- When directing users outside the app, developers must:
- Inform the user about the destination page and its purpose, and place this icon immediately following the link to indicate that a user will be directed outside the app. For example:
See more gem offers at gems.exampleapp.com
- Have a clearly visible URL on your destination page, allowing the user to understand where they've been directed.
- Not pass additional parameters in the URL or pre-populate data from the app, in order to protect the user.
- Not redirect or mislead users to a different destination page than that presented in your external offer, or present other false or deceptive information.
- Inform the user about the destination page and its purpose, and place this icon immediately following the link to indicate that a user will be directed outside the app. For example:
- Pay Google the applicable fees for transactions associated with a Play app that are concluded outside the app following the external offer. Like our standard service fees, the fees associated with the external offers programme reflect the value provided by Android and Play and support our continued investments across Android and Play. These fees consist of two separate components related to the value that Play delivers: (a) a two-year time-limited fee for the initial acquisition of the user and (b) a fee for the ongoing services (including Play’s security and update services) that Play continues to provide to the developer.
- The following fees apply, starting from the point that a user first completes a transaction within 120 hours of following an external offer (the first external transaction):
- Initial acquisition fee: 5% for auto-renewing subscriptions and 10% for other offers of in-app digital features and services.
- Ongoing services fee: 7% for auto-renewing subscriptions and 17% for other offers of in-app digital features and services.
- The fees above apply to both the first external transaction and to all digital content subsequently purchased on an external website for use in the app, irrespective of any time window.
- After the two-year initial acquisition period, a developer may choose to discontinue Play's ongoing services for a particular app. Since users acquired the app through Play with the expectation of services such as parental controls, security scanning, fraud prevention and continuous app updates, discontinuation of services requires user consent as well. Subsequently, ongoing services and associated fees will no longer apply to these users. Developers are still responsible for reporting transactions involving users who choose to continue receiving ongoing services from Play.
- The following fees apply, starting from the point that a user first completes a transaction within 120 hours of following an external offer (the first external transaction):
Enrol your app in the external offers programme
To enrol in the external offers programme, you must complete the following steps:
- Review the requirements on this page to determine if your app(s) meets all the eligibility criteria.
- Complete the external offers declaration form, accept the Terms of Service and complete any onboarding steps required to enrol in the programme through Google's support team.
- Integrate the external offers APIs.
- Enrol your app(s) directly through Play Console. Once you've identified the apps and countries/regions in which you will be providing external offers, click on a section below to expand it and follow the steps to enrol your app and manage your external offers settings:
- Open Play Console and go to the External offers page (Settings > Linking to external offers).
- Find the app that you want to enrol and click Manage in the table. This opens the Monetisation setup page for that app.
- Click + Add/Edit countries/regions to select the EEA countries/regions that you want to apply the external offers programme to for this particular app.
- The list of selectable countries/regions is determined by the programme's availability in those countries/regions.
- When you've finished selecting countries/regions, click Save changes.
- These steps need to be completed for each app that you want enrolled into the programme.
You can manage your external offers programme settings, including app-level enrolment and profile information, on the External offers page (Settings > Linking to external offers).
- Open Play Console and go to the Invoices page (Settings > Invoices for payments outside Google Play Billing).
- You can select the appropriate user region tab to view the corresponding transaction and service fee information associated with transactions made by users in that region, such as your amount due, transactions, invoices and documents, and settings.
- Open Play Console and go to the External offers page (Settings > Linking to external offers).
- Find the app that you want to enrol and click Manage in the table. This opens the Monetisation setup page for that app.
- Click + Edit country/regions to select the countries/regions that you want to update external offers in.
- The list of selectable countries/regions is determined by the programme's availability in those countries/regions.
- When you've finished selecting countries/regions, click Save changes.
5. Report all applicable authorised transactions to Google Play within 24 hours of the external transaction
If you have any additional questions, you can contact our support team here.
Frequently asked questions
Can developers utilise external offers for users in other geographies beyond the EEA?No, this programme is limited to EEA users. Developers from other regions can enrol in the programme to target users in the EEA outside of the Play App.
Currently, the EEA includes Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
Yes, both game and app developers are eligible to apply and participate in the external offers programme.
The programme is available for apps and games across all form factors, including mobile, tablet, Chrome OS, Android TV and Wear OS.
No, this is an opt-in programme only. If you do not wish to direct users outside of the app, no action is required.
Yes, after successfully signing up to the external offers programme, you can select which apps that you want to enrol for external offers at any given time using the Play Console.
You can change the external payments programme enrolment in a market for a given app package through your Play Console settings. Any updates will be effective immediately, including changes to applicable service fees.
It is easy to extend your existing integration with Google Play's billing system to utilise external offers APIs. The APIs are built upon the same design patterns and principles as our Play Billing Library and Play developer APIs. This means that they are compatible with your existing designs and will be mostly familiar to your teams. In our developer integration guide, we provide detailed guidelines and resources on how to get started. We welcome developer feedback on these APIs and any additional resources that would be helpful.
If you have any questions or feedback about the external offers APIs, please contact us here.
Yes, developers can take advantage of both programmes if they so choose, and if they satisfy requirements of both programmes and meet the eligibility criteria for both. If you have both programmes available in an app, the applicable service fees for a transaction depend on where the user chooses to conclude the transaction (within app or outside the app). To participate in the external offers programme and start promoting external offers, you'll need to successfully complete the sign-up process and comply with all the programme requirements.
Yes, developers can take advantage of Google Play's billing system while also participating in the external offers programme. If you have both Google Play Billing and are promoting external offers, the applicable service fees for a transaction depend on where the user chooses to conclude the transaction (within app or outside the app). To participate in the external offers programme and start promoting external offers, you'll need to successfully complete the sign-up process and comply with all the programme requirements.
Play's fees support our investment in Android and Google Play and reflect the value provided by Android and Play, including enabling us to distribute Android for free and provide the continuously growing suite of tools and services that help developers build successful businesses, all while keeping our platforms safe and secure for billions of users worldwide.
To comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulation, developers may enrol in the external offers programme. In order to continue our investments in the ecosystem, developers who participate with the external offers programme will be subject to a new service fee model for user purchases associated with a Play app that are concluded outside the app, consisting of an initial acquisition fee and an ongoing services fee.
The new service fee model for the external offers programme has two components :
The initial acquisition fee will be time-limited to reflect that Play is charging only for value that it provided in facilitating the initial acquisition of the user through Play. The time period for the 'initial acquisition', in turn, will take into account the way that app developers typically monetise apps. Many developers do so through small incremental transactions running over extended periods. For any transactions falling outside the two-year initial acquisition period for a given user, developers will not incur the initial acquisition fee.
The ongoing services fee will be charged for as long as the developer continues to use Play's ongoing services (including Play's security and update services). A developer can choose to opt out of Play's ongoing services for a given app, once the initial acquisition period of two years has ended. Since users acquired the app through Play with the expectation of services, such as parental controls, security scanning, fraud prevention and continuous app updates, discontinuation of services requires user consent. Therefore, when a developer decides to opt out, eligible users of the app must take action to agree to the opt out. Ongoing services and associated fees will then not apply with respect to those users. You will still need to report transactions for users who choose to continue to receive ongoing services from Play.
| Where the user completes a transaction while using the Fantastiq App | Fee model type | Purchasing time | Type of item bought | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Within the app | Google Play's billing system | Not applicable | Fabulous Playing monthly subscription | 15% |
| Outside the app | External offers | Within two years after the first external transaction | Stream More annual subscription |
Initial acquisition fee: 5%
|
| Outside the app | External offers | After two years after the first external transaction | 100 extra hearts |
Ongoing services fee: 17% (if user continues to use Play services) |
| Outside the app | External offers | After two years after the first external transaction | Premium monthly subscription |
Ongoing services fee: 7% (if user continues to use Play services) |