Implement React Native in-app purchases for Android apps

Overview: In-app purchases

In this article, we will implement React Native in-app purchases for Android apps. In-app purchases are additional content, features, subscriptions, or services that a user can purchase directly within an application. We will create a recipe application that offers a limited list of recipes for free users and allows users to make an in-app purchase to unlock all recipes with a premium subscription.

Types of IAP

There are several types of in-app purchases, including virtual products, locked features, and subscriptions. Virtual products are items like virtual currency or game power-ups that enhance the user's experience. Locked features refer to additional features that can only be unlocked via in-app purchase. Subscriptions involve a recurring fee charged for access to exclusive content or services on a periodic basis.

About our recipe application

For the purpose of demonstrating the integration of in-app purchases, we will develop a recipe application consisting of three screens: Home, Recipe detail, and Paywall. The Home screen displays a list of recipes, the Recipe detail screen shows detailed information about a recipe, and the Paywall screen allows users to make in-app purchases for a premium subscription. We will provide a starter project for the application.

Create our IAP products

To integrate in-app purchases into our application, we first need to set up the products in the respective stores. In the Google Play console, we need to set up a merchant account to accept payments. We can then create our in-app products with the required attributes such as product ID, name, description, and price.

Add license testers

In the Google Play console, we can create a list of license testers who can test the in-app purchases before they are released to the public. We need to provide a list of email addresses for the testers and send them an invite to test the purchases.

Install

We need to install the react-native-iap package, which allows us to easily incorporate in-app purchases into our React Native application. We can install the package by running a command in the terminal.

Initialize the connection

The native modules of the react-native-iap library need to be initialized early in the lifecycle of the application, before any in-app purchase function calls are made. We need to add some code to initialize the library and connect to the Play Store.

Define the product SKUs

Product IDs are a key component for integrating in-app purchases. We create a file to define the product SKUs or IDs for our application. We provide the product ID of the premium subscription product previously created in the Google Play console.

Fetch available purchases

We define a function to fetch the user's available purchases. If the user has a premium subscription, which is determined by matching the product ID of the purchased products with the product ID of the premium subscription, the state is set to true.

Add IAP products to the paywall

We add the in-app purchase products to the paywall screen, allowing users to make the purchase for a premium subscription. We display the product name, description, and price.

Update the paywall screen

We update the paywall screen to display the appropriate content based on whether the user has a premium subscription or not. If the user has a premium subscription, the full list of recipes is displayed. If not, only a limited list of recipes is shown with the option to make the in-app purchase.

Run the React Native app

Finally, we run the React Native app on an Android device to test the in-app purchase functionality. We can verify that the user can make the in-app purchase for the premium subscription and unlock access to all recipes.