Free trial or pay upfront: how to charge for an iPhone app (2026)

By Sigsten Gustavii· 1 October 2026· Updated 27 October 2026· 10 min read

Every app that charges money answers one question early: does the person pay before they have used it, or after? On the App Store that choice comes down to a handful of models Apple supports, each with its own rules for trials, pricing and what Apple keeps.

This guide compares them side by side, explains the three kinds of introductory offer Apple lets a subscription start with, and shows how to pick the one that fits your app. The details come from Apple's own pages, read in October 2026.

Paying upfront: the paid download

With a paid download, people pay once on the App Store before the app installs, and they get everything. Apple's business models page describes it as the model for people who prefer to pay once and get the full experience, and notes that because the price makes people weigh the app's value more carefully, successful paid apps are often positioned as premium experiences.

The catch is simple: there is no trial. The App Store has no built-in way to let someone try a paid download and get their money back automatically, so the product page has to do all the convincing. Screenshots, a short preview video, the description and ratings carry the whole sale.

• Good fit: a specialist tool with a clear audience, such as a calculator for one trade, a reference app or a game with a fixed amount of content.
• Harder fit: anything people need to use for a while before they trust it, or an app that costs you money every month to run.
• Paymium: Apple's name for a paid download that also sells optional extras inside. Apple warns that charging inside the app for features needed to use it can hurt sales and retention.

Free with a one-time unlock

The most common alternative is a free download with a single purchase that unlocks the full app forever. Apple calls this purchase a non-consumable. People can use the free part as long as they like, and pay once they see the value. It suits tools people open now and then, and it is easy to explain: pay once, keep it.

A time-limited trial without a subscription

If the free part would give away too much, Apple's guideline 3.1.1 allows a time-based trial in an app that does not use subscriptions. You set up a non-consumable in-app purchase at Price Tier 0, meaning free, named in the form "XX-day Trial", such as "14-day Trial". Before the trial starts, the app must say how long it lasts, what stops working when it ends, and what the person would pay afterwards for the full app.

That gives a one-time unlock the same feel as a free trial: try everything for two weeks, then buy once or stop.

Subscriptions and their introductory offers

A subscription charges again every week, month or year until the person cancels. Under guideline 3.1.2(a) it must give ongoing value, and each period must last at least seven days. Subscriptions are where Apple's free trials live: Apple calls them introductory offers, and there are three kinds.

A free trial can last 3 days, 1 or 2 weeks, 1, 2, 3 or 6 months, or a year, whatever the subscription's own length. A pay-as-you-go offer runs for a number of the subscription's own periods, and a pay-up-front offer covers 1, 2, 3 or 6 months or a year.

A few rules shape how you use them:

• One per person per group. Each person can redeem one introductory offer per subscription group. If they used a free trial on your monthly plan, they will not get another on the yearly plan in the same group.
• Per country or region. You choose where the offer runs, and you can have one current and one future offer in each storefront.
• No editing. Once created, an introductory offer cannot be changed; you delete it and make a new one.
• Shown for you. An introductory offer appears on your App Store product page for people who are eligible.

Apple also has offers for later moments: promotional offers for existing or former subscribers, offer codes you hand out yourself, and win-back offers for people who used to subscribe. Our guide to in-app purchase types covers how they fit together.

What a free trial changes about your money

On a subscription you keep 70% of the price in a subscriber's opening year and 85% once they have a year of paid service, according to Apple's subscriptions page. Free trial days do not count towards that year; days on a paid introductory offer do. In the Small Business Program you keep 85% from the start, trial or not.

A trial costs you nothing in commission, because nothing is charged. What it can cost is running expenses: if your app calls an AI model or stores files for every trial user, you pay for that use whether or not they subscribe. Keep that in mind when you choose between a three-day trial and a month. Our breakdown of what Apple takes from app sales has the full commission table.

Free trial or pay upfront: when each fits

Two rules of thumb help. Short trials of three to seven days suit apps whose value shows in a session or two; longer ones suit habits, like fitness or language learning, where the payoff comes later. And if you are unsure between a paid download and a free app with an unlock, the unlock usually wins, because people can see the app before deciding.

How to show a free trial within Apple's rules

Apple is strict about trials because they can be used to trick people. Guideline 3.1.2(a) says apps that trick people into subscribing under false pretences, or use bait-and-switch, are removed from the App Store, and the developer may be removed from the Apple Developer Program. In practice that means:

• Say how long the trial lasts and what it costs afterwards, in the purchase flow, as Apple's subscriptions page asks.
• Make the renewing price at least as visible as the word free. A tiny line of grey text under a large Free button is the pattern reviewers reject.
• Keep prices out of the app's name, subtitle and screenshots; guideline 2.3.7 keeps prices off metadata. The offer appears on the product page by itself.
• Let people close the paywall easily, and never hide the free part of the app behind it.

Our page on Apple's review guidelines in plain English explains the subscription rules in more detail.

How to set up a free trial, step by step

1. Create the subscription in App Store Connect, inside a subscription group, with its standard price and length.
2. Add an introductory offer to that subscription, choose the countries or regions, pick Free trial and its length.
3. Set the start and, if you want, an end date. The offer ends on that date, at a time that varies by region.
4. Update the paywall wording so it says how long the trial lasts and the price after it.
5. Test it in Apple's sandbox before the update goes to review.
6. Watch who stays. Compare how many trials turn into paying subscribers, and adjust the length if most people leave on the last day.

Charging for an app built with Borel

Borel builds native iPhone apps in Swift, and it writes the paywall for you. From Payments in the chat's + menu you set up a subscription or a one-time unlock, with its price, and Borel writes a StoreKit paywall that shows Apple's own price, the renewal terms for a subscription, Restore Purchases, and links to your terms and privacy policy. When you publish, Borel creates the matching products in your App Store Connect account before the build goes to Apple. The in-app purchases page shows how it looks.

A free trial is then a setting at Apple: add an introductory offer to the subscription in App Store Connect, and tell Borel what the paywall should say about it.

My Pro subscription now has a 7-day free trial in App Store Connect. Add a line above the purchase button that says the trial is free for 7 days and then renews at the monthly price, and change the button to Start free trial. Keep Restore Purchases and the links underneath.

Publishing takes Borel Pro, from $20 a month, and Apple's Developer Program, $99 a year. Pro also shows revenue, subscribers and trials for each app once you connect RevenueCat with the app's key, so you can see how many trials turn into subscriptions. Borel takes none of what your app earns; Apple pays you directly. The pricing page lists every plan.

The bottom line

Charge upfront when people already know they want the app and the product page can make the sale on its own. Make the app free with a one-time unlock, or a "14-day Trial" item, when people need to see it work. Use a subscription with a free trial when the app proves itself over days or weeks, and keep the trial short when every use costs you money.

Whichever you pick, decide before you build the paywall: it shapes what is free, what is paid and where people meet the price. Our guide to making money from an app covers the wider choice, including ads and real-world sales.

I lean towards letting people try an app before they pay, because a good app makes the case for itself. Whichever way you charge, I would like to hear how it goes.

– Sigsten

Make your iPhone app in Borel

Describe the app you want and see its first screens before you pay anything.