Roku Developer Program

[baijupaul]

For a channel that I am building, we want the capability for customers to subscribe for free or at a discounted price for a set time period.

After that period, they would automatically be switched to the standard, auto-renewing subscription price.

Is that possible?

One option is to use in-app purchase for the discounted price for the set time period, and then prompt the user for the subscription option after the time period has expired. However, this require a user intervention at the end of the time period, and we would much much rather avoid this user intervention.

[TheEndless]

Yes. In-channel purchases can be created with a trial period.

[baijupaul]

Thank you for the response. In-channel subscriptions have a free trial period and that is useful. Is there a way to have discounted pricing (not free), during the trial period?

[adamkaz]

Unfortunately, the Roku billing endpoints aren't documented well. I don't believe discounted pricing or switching plans can be done automatically. You may have a couple of options though. I'm going to use the example that you'd like to have someone pay $5 a month for two months and then $10 month after that.

If you look at "update-bill-cycle", you might be able to push their first billing period out. So you would have to still charge them the same amount, but you could give them some extra time. In my example, you'd sign the customer up for the $10 plan and then artificially move the bill date out an extra month, so they would get 2 months for $10, and then after that, it would be $10 a month. Again, it's not 100% clear that this is how update-bill-cycle works, so plan to test.

You could also charge them the full $10 a month, and when you see the charge occur the first 2 months, immediately issue them a credit. Again, this isn't really well documented, so I'm not sure if the money goes back to the user's bank account or if they can only use it on Roku.

Neither are super awesome options, but at least they are options.

[baijupaul]

Thank you very much for your suggestions. Very useful.