Nobody likes paying for a full year of app subscriptions upfront, especially when you’re not sure whether you’ll still be using them in a few months. Apple has heard that frustration, well, sort of.
The company has announced a new App Store subscription type: monthly billing at an annual equivalent price. Sounds amazing, right? But there’s a catch. Monthly billing is locked in for a 12-month commitment period.
What does the new subscription type actually offer?
Instead of choosing between a relatively more expensive monthly plan or a discounted annual payment (that’s how most apps lure customers to go for the yearly plans), App Store subscribers can now pay the lower, annual-equivalent rate (annual price divided by 12) on a monthly basis.
For instance, an app that might cost $9.99 per month or $90 upfront could now cost you $7.50 per month over 12 installments. In other words, you’ll get the same discount as the annual price, without paying the entire amount up front.
Apple also adds transparency to the new subscription type by letting users view the number of completed payments and the remaining payments toward the subscription at any given time. Further, like regular subscriptions, the company will also send reminder emails and push notifications before renewals.
Developers can already begin testing the new subscription type in App Store Connect and Xcode, and the feature will go live for users on iOS 26.4 and equivalent platform versions from next month.
What’s the catch?
As I said before, the monthly billing is locked in for a year. Even if you cancel a subscription in the ninth or tenth month, you’d still have to pay the remaining three or two installments (basically complete a payment of 12 monthly annual-equivalent payments) before you can get out of the commitment for the next 12-month cycle.
While it might sound like a trap, the new App Store subscription model actually strikes the right balance between monthly installment flexibility at a discounted rate and the developers getting paid their set annual rate.
What’s odd, however, is that the new model isn’t launching in the United States and Singapore for now, with no official timeline given for when either market will be included. To me, the new tier looks like the result of regulatory pressure for subscription transparency, but either way, it lets you divide an app’s annual subscription fee, usually paid upfront, into 12 committed monthly installments.