Roku Developer Program

Join our online forum to talk to Roku developers and fellow channel creators. Ask questions, share tips with the community, and find helpful resources.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
yogamerge
Visitor

Having A Free Preview Section in a Paid Channel

Hey guys,

Getting to close to finishing up my first channel. I am going to use Roku Billing and a subscription model. I want to have a free preview section in the channel, is that possible? When Roku sets up billing can they keep that section free and just prompt subscription signup in the other sections of the channel? or does the free preview section have to be it's own channel?
0 Kudos
2 REPLIES 2
Category5
Newbie

Re: Having A Free Preview Section in a Paid Channel

I believe what you want is to create two separate channels. One is a free, limited channel with in-channel upgrade option to the premium channel.

See section 6.4 of the docs:

http://sdkdocs.roku.com/display/sdkdoc/Channel+Packaging+And+Publishing#ChannelPackagingAndPublishin...

"6.4.3 Free channel to monthly or annual subscription channel
For example, a user adds a $0.00 channel, has limited access to content and is prompted within channel to buy for $2.99/month."
Robbie Ferguson, Host
Category5 Technology TV
Roku Channel Access Code: CAT5TV
www.Category5.TV
0 Kudos
RokuJoel
Binge Watcher

Re: Having A Free Preview Section in a Paid Channel

Yes, you can have a free section in a pay channel, and it doesn't require you to have a free and paid channel. Note that if you want to target our Legacy devices, in-channel subscriptions are not supported. But for all our other devices, you can do this. Create your channel with the free content, and for the paid content, in order to watch it, when the user selects that content, you will use the roChannelStore component to check if the user has a valid subscription, and if not, you will trigger the purchase dialog, otherwise, you will allot the user to watch the content.

roChannelStore Info

Developer Blog article

Hope that helps. We encourage you to use inChannelPurchase and subscription as opposed to using the In-Place upgrade method described in the previous post.

- Joel
0 Kudos