Guideline 2.1(b) and in-app purchases the reviewer can't find

What Guideline 2.1(b) means

Every product you add to the submission is reviewed with the app, so the reviewer has to be able to find each one and try it. A product that only appears after an hour of use, on a special date, in one country or for a certain kind of account can look missing to someone starting from a fresh install.

Apple's Business section adds that if your business model isn't obvious, the metadata and review notes should explain it, because a reviewer who can't understand how purchases work will delay the review and may reject it.

Subscriptions have one more need: Apple's help page on a complete review asks for a demo account with an expired subscription, so the reviewer can go through the whole purchase flow instead of landing in an account that already has everything.

Apple's App Review Help has a page on configuring in-app purchases for review in the sandbox, the test environment where purchases cost nothing, which is how reviewers try them.

Why apps are turned down under Guideline 2.1(b)

• The reviewer couldn't find the in-app purchases

  The purchase sits behind a long path, a sign-in, a usage limit or a feature flag the reviewer never reached, and the notes didn't say where it is.

• The purchase didn't work

  Buying showed an error or nothing happened, often because the product isn't fully set up in App Store Connect or the ID in the app doesn't match the one there.

• The purchase doesn't match its description

  The name, price or content in the app differs from what was submitted, or the product unlocks nothing visible.

How to fix it and resubmit

1. List every product in the submission and, for each one, write down the exact taps from launch to the purchase sheet.
2. Make each product reachable on a fresh install without waiting or special conditions; if one can't be, say why in the notes.
3. Check each product in App Store Connect: the same ID as the app uses, a display name, a price, a review screenshot and every required field filled in.
4. Buy each one in the sandbox on a real iPhone, restore it after reinstalling, and for subscriptions prepare a demo account whose subscription has expired.
5. Add the taps for each product to the review notes, include the products with the version, and resubmit.

How Borel helps

When a Borel app sells something, the publish flow creates each product in App Store Connect before Borel's Mac builds the app, and the app finds them by the same IDs, so the store and the app can't drift apart.

The review notes Borel drafts list every product with its name, type and product ID, say where to buy and where Restore Purchases is, and state that prices come from StoreKit and nothing is sold outside In-App Purchase.

Questions people ask

Related guidelines

• Guideline 3.1.1In-App Purchase
• Guideline 3.1.2Subscriptions
• Guideline 2.1Information Needed