What is an In-App Purchase (IAP)?

If you’re asking what is an app purchase, it’s any extra digital content, feature, or subscription a user buys inside a mobile app after install.

In Apple’s words, in-app purchases are “extra content or subscriptions that you buy inside an app,” and the App Store flags them on the listing so users know before they download.

How it works

When a user taps “Buy,” the platform handles payment and security, APNs/App Store on iOS, and Google Play Billing on Android, then returns a verified receipt so your app can unlock the goods instantly.

On Google Play, products fall into familiar shapes: consumables that can be bought again (coins, energy), non-consumables that unlock once (remove ads, pro filter), and subscriptions that renew on a cadence.

Apple uses the same conceptual model, and both ecosystems rely on secure, server-verified transactions to keep fraud low and entitlements accurate.

Why it’s important

IAP is the revenue engine for mobile. In 2024, consumers spent about $150B on in-app purchases and subscriptions across iOS and Google Play, up 13% YoY, a clear signal that monetization via IAP and subs continues to scale.

For non-gaming, growth has been especially strong, with AI and productivity apps climbing the revenue charts quarter after quarter.

If you’re weighing what does in app purchase mean in the App Store context, it means a mainstream, trusted checkout that drives the majority of store spend for many categories.

Example

A meditation app has a free basic version, a "Pro Toolkit" that you can't use up, and a monthly subscription. Early reviews say things like "confusing pricing" and "paywall too soon," which hurt ratings and sales.

After making the paywall copy easier to understand, adding a longer free trial, and changing the price tiers to fit different regions, installs stay the same, but trial-to-paid and ARPU go up. Reviews start to say things like "worth it" and "good value."

The team at AppFollow keeps track of this turn by filtering reviews that mention "price," "subscription," and "refund," watching Rating Analysis go up by about 0.4 stars, and sending a before-and-after picture to the revenue team to check against billing data.

ASO angle for AppFollow readers

Clarity around benefits, trial terms, and entitlement timing directly affects product-page conversion and ratings. Cleaner value props improve CR, and fewer billing surprises reduce negative sentiment, both signals you can quantify in AppFollow via semantic tags, review trends, and category benchmarks.

What does in app purchase mean for your roadmap? It’s not just a paywall, it’s a UX, trust, and messaging system that touches discovery, conversion, and long-term LTV. Nail the story, watch the metrics follow.