Apple Explains How Developers Can Enable Family Sharing for Subscriptions

Back in 2020, Apple introduced Family Sharing — a feature that lets users share eligible in-app purchases and auto-renewable subscriptions with up to five iCloud family members across Apple devices.

Apple on Tuesday published a new guide on the Apple Developer website detailing how developers can go about enabling Family Sharing for their apps.

Enabling Family Sharing for the subscriptions you offer will help you “grow your subscription business, encourage paid memberships, and improve subscriber retention,” says Apple.

Family Sharing can be enabled on a per-subscription basis, and developers can configure the feature to support either new or existing subscriptions. To turn Family Sharing on for a subscription you offer, you need to:

  1. Go to App Store Connect.
  2. In the My Apps section, select the app you want to enable Family Sharing for.
  3. Select In-App Purchases and pick the Manage option.
  4. Select the auto-renewable subscription you’d like to enable Family Sharing for.
  5. Click or tap on Turn On.

Developers need to make sure they perform purchase validation in order for Family Sharing to work. Furthermore, if you choose to offer Family Sharing as a higher level of service for an existing subscription, be sure to rank this subscription at the same level as the individual base subscription in App Store Connect so that customers can upgrade if they want to.

Apple also advises developers to promote Family Sharing as a feature pre-purchase, highlight the feature for existing subscribers as well as potential ones, offer Family Sharing as an upgrade, and try to include Family Sharing in the display names of eligible subscriptions.

If you want to learn more about the feature, check out Apple’s walkthrough of how Family Sharing works or visit the Apple Developer website.

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