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In-app Billing Reference

This documentation provides technical reference information for using the In-app Billing Version 3 API.

Server Response Codes

The following table lists all of the server response codes that are sent from Google Play to your application. Google Play sends the response code synchronously as an integer mapped to the RESPONSE_CODE key in the response Bundle. Your application must handle all of these response codes.

Table 1. Summary of response codes for In-app Billing Version 3 API calls.

Response Code Value Description
BILLING_RESPONSE_RESULT_OK 0 Success
BILLING_RESPONSE_RESULT_USER_CANCELED 1 User pressed back or canceled a dialog
BILLING_RESPONSE_RESULT_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE 2 Network connection is down
BILLING_RESPONSE_RESULT_BILLING_UNAVAILABLE 3 Billing API version is not supported for the type requested
BILLING_RESPONSE_RESULT_ITEM_UNAVAILABLE 4 Requested product is not available for purchase
BILLING_RESPONSE_RESULT_DEVELOPER_ERROR 5 Invalid arguments provided to the API. This error can also indicate that the application was not correctly signed or properly set up for In-app Billing in Google Play, or does not have the necessary permissions in its manifest
BILLING_RESPONSE_RESULT_ERROR 6 Fatal error during the API action
BILLING_RESPONSE_RESULT_ITEM_ALREADY_OWNED 7 Failure to purchase since item is already owned
BILLING_RESPONSE_RESULT_ITEM_NOT_OWNED 8 Failure to consume since item is not owned

API Reference

The In-app Billing Version 3 API is defined in the IInAppBillingService.aidl file, which is included with the Version 3 sample application.

The getSkuDetails() method

This method returns product details for a list of product IDs. In the response Bundle sent by Google Play, the query results are stored in a String ArrayList mapped to the DETAILS_LIST key. Each String in the details list contains product details for a single product in JSON format. The fields in the JSON string with the product details are summarized in table 2.

Table 2. Description of JSON fields with product item details returned from a getSkuDetails request.

Key Description
productId The product ID for the product.
type Value must be “inapp” for an in-app product or "subs" for subscriptions.
price Formatted price of the item, including its currency sign. The price does not include tax.
price_amount_micros Price in micro-units, where 1,000,000 micro-units equal one unit of the currency. For example, if price is "€7.99", price_amount_micros is "7990000". This value represents the localized, rounded price for a particular currency.
price_currency_code ISO 4217 currency code for price. For example, if price is specified in British pounds sterling, price_currency_code is "GBP".
title Title of the product.
description Description of the product.

The getBuyIntent() method

This method returns a response code integer mapped to the RESPONSE_CODE key, and a PendingIntent to launch the purchase flow for the in-app item mapped to the BUY_INTENT key, as described in Purchasing an Item. When it receives the PendingIntent, Google Play sends a response Intent with the data for that purchase order. The data that is returned in the response Intent is summarized in table 3.

Table 3. Response data from an In-app Billing Version 3 purchase request.

Key Description
RESPONSE_CODE Value is 0 if the purchase was success, error otherwise.
INAPP_PURCHASE_DATA A String in JSON format that contains details about the purchase order. See table 4 for a description of the JSON fields.
INAPP_DATA_SIGNATURE String containing the signature of the purchase data that was signed with the private key of the developer. The data signature uses the RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 scheme.

Table 4 describes the JSON fields that are returned in the response data for a purchase order.

Table 4. Descriptions of the JSON fields for INAPP_PURCHASE_DATA.

Field Description
autoRenewing Indicates whether the subscription renews automatically. If true, the subscription is active, and will automatically renew on the next billing date. If false, indicates that the user has canceled the subscription. The user has access to subscription content until the next billing date and will lose access at that time unless they re-enable automatic renewal (or manually renew, as described in Manual Renewal). If you offer a grace period, this value remains set to true for all subscriptions, as long as the grace period has not lapsed. The next billing date is extended dynamically every day until the end of the grace period or until the user fixes their payment method.
orderId A unique order identifier for the transaction. This identifier corresponds to the Google payments order ID. If the order is a test purchase made through the In-app Billing Sandbox, orderId is blank.
packageName The application package from which the purchase originated.
productId The item's product identifier. Every item has a product ID, which you must specify in the application's product list on the Google Play Developer Console.
purchaseTime The time the product was purchased, in milliseconds since the epoch (Jan 1, 1970).
purchaseState The purchase state of the order. Possible values are 0 (purchased), 1 (canceled), or 2 (refunded).
developerPayload A developer-specified string that contains supplemental information about an order. You can specify a value for this field when you make a getBuyIntent request.
purchaseToken A token that uniquely identifies a purchase for a given item and user pair.

The getBuyIntentToReplaceSkus() method

This method is used to upgrade or downgrade a subscription purchase. The method is similar to getBuyIntent(), except that it takes a list of already-purchased SKUs that are to be replaced with the SKU being purchased. When the user completes the purchase, Google Play cancels the old SKUs and credits the user with the unused value of their subscription time on a pro-rated basis. Google Play applies this credit to the new subscription, and does not begin billing the user for the new subscription until after the credit is used up.

This method was added with version 5 of the in-app billing API. To verify that the method is reported, send an isBillingSupported AIDL request.

Note: You can only use this method for subscription purchases. If the passed type parameter is anything other than "subs", the method returns BILLING_RESPONSE_RESULT_DEVELOPER_ERROR. Furthermore, the passed SKUs may not include SKUs for seasonal subscriptions.

This method returns a response code integer mapped to the RESPONSE_CODE key, and a PendingIntent to launch the purchase flow for the in-app subscription mapped to the BUY_INTENT key, as described in Purchasing an Item. When it receives the PendingIntent, Google Play sends a response Intent with the data for that purchase order. The data that is returned in the response Intent is summarized in table 5.

Table 5. Response data from an In-app Billing Version 5 purchase request.

Key Description
RESPONSE_CODE Value is 0 if the purchase succeeds. If the purchase fails, contains an error code.
INAPP_PURCHASE_DATA A String in JSON format that contains details about the purchase order. See table 4 for a description of the JSON fields.
INAPP_DATA_SIGNATURE String containing the signature of the purchase data that the developer signed with their private key. The data signature uses the RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 scheme.

The getPurchases() method

This method returns the current un-consumed products owned by the user, including both purchased items and items acquired by redeeming a promo code. Table 5 lists the response data that is returned in the Bundle.

Table 6. Response data from a getPurchases request.

Key Description
RESPONSE_CODE Value is 0 if the request was successful, error otherwise.
INAPP_PURCHASE_ITEM_LIST StringArrayList containing the list of productIds of purchases from this app.
INAPP_PURCHASE_DATA_LIST StringArrayList containing the details for purchases from this app. See table 4 for the list of detail information stored in each INAPP_PURCHASE_DATA item in the list.
INAPP_DATA_SIGNATURE_LIST StringArrayList containing the signatures of purchases from this app.
INAPP_CONTINUATION_TOKEN String containing a continuation token to retrieve the next set of in-app products owned by the user. This is only set by the Google Play service if the number of products owned by the user is very large. When a continuation token is present in the response, you must make another call to getPurchases and pass in the continuation token that you received. The subsequent getPurchases call returns more purchases and possibly another continuation token.

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