Google acknowledges that while consumers recognize the value of subscribing to premium apps, they are worried that keeping track of their spending and canceling their subscription might not be as easy as signing up, which poses a barrier to increased subscriptions overall. The search giant wants to allay those concerns by formally announcing a new subscription center on Google Play.
Initially unveiled at the recent Google I/O developer conference, the new subscription center streamlines the way users manage their Google Play subscriptions. With the new feature, users can check the status of their existing subscriptions in a single view, manage their payment methods, renew or cancel a subscription, or restore those they have previously canceled. Once a subscriber decides to leave an app, for example, a survey will pop up to let developers know of the reason for canceling.
Additionally, there's a new subscription discovery link designed to help users explore other subscription-based apps through localized and curated collections.
To help developers bring users directly to the subscription management page of their app, Google also introduced the ability for them to create deep links which can be added to their app. This will allow users to manage their subscriptions from the app, over email or on the web, according to Google.
Other new tools the tech giant plans to release soon to help developers improve the users' experience include the ability to alert subscribers to a price change via the Google Play Console. Google says it will cancel a subscription if the user has not accepted the change by the time their subscription expires.
Subscriptions management is available now via Google Play and can be accessed via the Hamburger menu at the top left of the Play app.
