Apple Adds Subscription Bundle Pricing for Developers as Competition Heats Up

As app developers look to drive subscription loyalty in the face of increasing competition, Apple is making it possible for players in the space to offer bundled subscription pricing.

The tech giant announced Friday (Dec. 15) in a post on its site for developers that it is testing the feature.

“Contingent pricing for subscriptions on the App Store — a new feature that helps you attract and retain subscribers — lets you give customers a discounted subscription price as long as they’re actively subscribed to a different subscription,” the company stated.

The feature will be available for developers to offer discounted subscriptions to consumers who are already enrolled in one of their own other subscriptions. It also allows for subscription partnerships, with developers able to offer a discounted rate to consumers subscribed to a different developer’s service.

The option is currently being piloted with a limited number of developers, with more to come.

The move comes as subscription merchants increasingly bundle their offerings to either drive synergies within their own portfolios or to create mutually beneficial partnerships with other companies — competitors or otherwise.

For instance, Apple and Paramount are reportedly in talks to offer a discounted subscription bundle. On the other side — partnering with subscription merchants in unrelated fields — Disney+ is offering its customers $40 off a one-year membership to Walmart+.

Subscription bundling can go a long way. A PYMNTS Intelligence report from 2020, created in collaboration with Vindicia, revealed that 51% of consumers rank saving money among the top three reasons for considering buying subscription bundles. Plus, subscription services’ best customers are the most likely to seek bundles, with 79% of those who subscribe to six or more services saying they preferred subscription bundles.

“The bar continues to get higher,” sticky.io CEO Brian Bogosian told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in an interview earlier this year. “People’s budgets are getting squeezed. People aren’t spending money frivolously. If they don’t get value, if they don’t get flexibility, if they don’t get incentives to continue, they’ll drop off.”

High prices are off-putting to many consumers, not only standing in the way of signups but also contributing to churn, according to the study “Subscription Commerce Readiness Report: Bridging the Gap Between Subscription Conversion and Retention,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and sticky.io collaboration. The report, which drew from a survey of more than 2,200 U.S. consumers, revealed that cost is the most common reason people unsubscribe, with 56% of consumers citing it as the reason for canceling a subscription in the previous year.

Additionally, ongoing economic challenges are prompting many subscribers who would otherwise stick around to hit the cancel button. PYMNTS Intelligence and sticky.io’s “Subscription Commerce Conversion Index: Subscribers Seek Affordability and Convenience,” which was based on responses from more than 2,100 U.S. consumers, found that 53% paying for a streaming subscription and 48% of those paying for a membership “would cancel the service if unable to pay other essential bills.”