To submit an app with the category Magazines & Newspapers, you must offer at least one auto-renewable subscription. Error.

Question

I tried submitting an app made with bakerframework in the magazine category and i got the following:

To submit an app with the category Magazines & Newspapers, you must offer at least one auto-renewable subscription. Set one up in In-App Purchases.

However with the changes in in-app purchases a couple of years ago, apple disabled the option to give a free in-app subscription for a magazine.

So I tried a non consumable in app purchase. And got that message.

Then I changed the categories for the app to see whether it would accept an upload and still get the same message.

Does it keep track of your submissions and not accept changes in categories in itunesconnect?

I tried disabling subscriptions all together in the app and deleted all teh in app purchase settings in itunesconnect and STILL get the same error.

Does anyone have a solution or a similar experience with this?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

i had the same issue the last two days. It was because the build of my app was using the «Newsstand kit» and when developers use the Newsstand plist key in their app, they are required to have at least one auto-renewable subscription before submitting the app for review. So with a new build without the «Newsstand kit», it worked ;)

Answer 2

The same issue occurred for my app so I have sent a request to the Apple Support team. They sent me the following answer:

Thank you for confirming this metadata was set correctly. After investigating further, it seems that this issue may be due to the fact that your app's category is set to Magazines and Newspapers but there is no free or auto-renewable subscription tied to the app - which is required for all Magazines and Newspapers apps.

Auto-Renewable Subscriptions allow users to access content or services within an app on an ongoing basis. At the end of the subscription duration, the subscription automatically renews until the user chooses to cancel. For more info, please see the following:

Offering Subscriptions

In-App Purchase Programming Guide

In-App Purchase Configuration Guide

If you are still unable to submit your app for review after including a free or auto-renewable subscription in your app, please let me know.

Kind regards,