📱 Payments in the app: on your website or inside the app

Apple and Google have rules for digital purchases in an app: downloads, memberships, tips. Merch and tickets always sell normally through your site's checkout.

You choose how your fans pay for digital items in Admin → App → How fans pay for digital items in the app. That choice is built into the app: to change it, build a new version.

On your website (no store cut)

• The app lists your products; fans buy on your website, and what they bought there works in the app.
• Apple and Google don't allow a buy link in the app, except for fans in the United States: tick Add a "Buy on the website" link for US fans (allowed in the US since 2025, with no Apple commission). Fans elsewhere don't see it.
• Best for most artists: your fans already buy on your site, you keep everything, nothing to set up.

Inside the app (Apple and Google take their cut)

• One-tap buying through the App Store and Google Play. The stores keep a share of each sale (usually 15% to 30%).
• Each item has to be created in your store accounts with the exact ID shown on the App page:
  - a download: tos.p followed by the product number;
  - a membership: tos.m followed by the level, then .month or .year;
  - tips: three fixed amounts (stores don't accept an amount typed by the fan). You choose the three amounts on the App page.
• Trinity Host checks every purchase with the store before your site delivers it.
• A good choice if you sell lots of small digital items (songs, tips) to fans who live in the app.

Not sure?

On the App page, Ask Coach Trinity to help you choose. Store rules change: we check them again before every build.