Google Play's payments policy is the reason some website apps are effortless to list and others cannot be listed at all without re-engineering. The rule itself is one sentence; the consequences fill this guide.
The rule
Apps distributed on Google Play that sell digital goods or services consumed within the app must use Google Play's billing system for those purchases. Apps selling physical goods, or services consumed outside the app, may use any payment method.
What counts as what
| Sold in the app | Classification | Your web checkout allowed? |
|---|---|---|
| Products shipped or collected | Physical goods | Yes |
| Restaurant orders, groceries, flowers | Physical goods | Yes |
| Appointments, classes, repairs, consultations delivered in person or by video outside the app | Service consumed outside the app | Yes |
| Rides, deliveries, tickets to real-world events, hotel bookings | Physical/real-world services | Yes |
| Gift cards redeemable for physical goods | Physical goods | Yes |
| Donations to a registered non-profit | Exempt | Yes |
| Peer-to-peer payments, bill payments, remittances | Exempt | Yes |
| E-books, PDFs, music, video, software downloads | Digital goods | No — Play Billing |
| Online courses viewed in the app; premium articles; members-only content | Digital goods/services consumed in the app | No — Play Billing |
| Subscriptions to app features or content | Digital | No — Play Billing |
| "Remove ads" purchase | Digital | No — Play Billing |
| Virtual currency, game items | Digital | No — Play Billing |
| Software licences for use outside the app (e.g. a desktop program) | Generally digital, but consumed outside — grey; Google has treated cross-platform licences case by case | Ask, or avoid selling in-app |
The "consumption only" exemption
An app that lets users consume digital content purchased elsewhere — a streaming service, a newspaper whose subscribers signed up on the web — may do so without Play Billing, provided the app does not lead users to purchase outside Play: no "subscribe" buttons, no pricing, no links to the web checkout for digital goods. For a WebView app this is fragile, because the website's own subscribe buttons are right there. If you rely on this exemption, the app's start URL and navigation must avoid every page that sells the digital product, which usually means a dedicated app entry point on your site.
Memberships and the "in the app" test
The question Google asks is where is the thing consumed? A gym membership bought through the app but used at the gym: outside the app, own checkout allowed. A membership that unlocks videos watched in the app: inside the app, Play Billing. A site that mixes both (a yoga studio with in-person classes and an on-demand video library) must either sell only the in-person membership in the app or use Play Billing for the digital one.
Service fees
Play Billing carries Google's service fee: 15% on the first US$1 million of annual revenue for developers in the reduced-fee programme (most small developers), 30% above that; subscriptions are 15% from day one. Physical goods through your own checkout pay Google nothing. This is why a shop should never move its checkout into Play Billing even where it could.
User choice billing
In several regions (the EEA, India, Japan, Australia, South Korea and others, expanding over time) Google offers user choice billing: developers may offer an alternative billing system alongside Play Billing for digital goods, with a fee reduced by about 4 percentage points. It still requires Play Billing to be offered, and integration work. For most website publishers it does not change the practical advice.
Practical compliance patterns for website apps
- Physical-goods shop: nothing to do. Keep your checkout. Declare "no digital purchases" in content rating.
- Mixed catalogue: hide digital products from the app — a separate collection excluded from the app's navigation, or a rule on the site that hides them when the visitor is the app (the builder's user-agent string identifies it).
- Digital publisher: make the Play app free with all content, monetised by ads; or use the consumption-only exemption with a dedicated app entry point that never shows a subscribe button; or don't list on Play and let readers install the web app from your site.
- Digital products are the business: integrate Play Billing — natively in a WebView app (requires a native bridge; not something a wrapper does) or via the Digital Goods API in a Trusted Web Activity — and accept the fee for Play-originated sales.
Enforcement patterns
- Reviewers browse the catalogue and tap "buy". A Stripe checkout for a PDF is a rejection titled "Payments".
- Apps approved with physical goods that later add digital ones get caught in periodic re-review; the app is removed until fixed.
- Steering language ("cheaper on our website") for digital goods is a violation even if the purchase itself happens on the web.
Unsure which side of the line a product falls on? Google's policy help lists examples; when in doubt, keep the item out of the app version and email us with the specifics — we have seen most of the edge cases.