App rejected: payments outside the store

Digital goods used inside an app are sold through in-app purchase by default. Two places have opened since: in the United States a court injunction ha

Updated 2026-09-18 · Written from the same rules terms.gg uses to generate documents

What the rejection means

Digital goods used inside an app are sold through in-app purchase by default. Two places have opened since: in the United States a court injunction has let apps link out to an external purchase since May 2025, and in the European Union the Digital Markets Act opened similar routes. Both come with Apple's own conditions, and a link that ignores them is still a rejection.

The usual causes

• A link to a web checkout in a storefront where linking out is not allowed.
• A link-out in the United States that does not follow Apple's entitlement and disclosure rules.
• A paywall that mentions a price the store does not know about.

What to change

Sell through in-app purchase unless your storefront allows a link-out, and where it does, follow the entitlement, the disclosure sheet and the reporting Apple attaches to it.

Before you resubmit

• Open every URL you entered in a private window.
• Read the reviewer's message again and answer the specific point, not the general topic.
• Reply in Resolution Center saying what you changed and where to see it.

Keeping it true after launch

A legal page stops being true the moment the product moves past it, usually by adding a payment provider, an analytics SDK or a sign-in. No store re-checks your pages against your build, so the drift is yours to notice.

• Re-read it whenever you add a dependency that sees user data.
• Re-check what loads on the page after any change: the cookie notice and the policy have to agree.
• Keep the URL stable. Changing where a policy lives breaks every listing that points at it.