The external offers program allows developers of Google Play managed apps to lead users in the European Economic Area (EEA) outside the app, including to promote offers for in-app features and services, subject to Google Play's Payments policy. Developers must meet the below eligibility and requirements, and complete their enrollment in this program prior to promoting external offers. Participating developers are subject to our Payments policy and the applicable service fees described below, which support our investments in Play and Android, will continue to apply.
Eligibility
In order to be eligible for this program:
- Your app must be an app or game across any form factor offering external offers to users in the EEA.
- Your app must not target users under 13 years old.
- Developer must be registered as a business.
Requirements
Developers participating in this program must comply with the following requirements:
- Limit external offers to users in the EEA.
- External offers must only direct users to the developer’s own digital features or services. These destinations cannot cross promote non-owned content.
- Enrolled Play managed apps are only eligible to use alternative billing without user choice for in-app purchases and may not use Google Play Billing or user choice billing.
- Provide all destination URLs through Play Console until updated APIs are available. See FAQ for more detail.
- Enroll and get approval for your app(s) in the external offers program as defined below.
- Integrate with the external offers APIs to link users to external offers including calling these APIs so Google can surface the required information screen and developers can report applicable transactions.
- Provide customer support and refund methods for users completing external transactions through an external offer, and provide a process to dispute unauthorized transactions.
- Play store listings must not include information regarding purchases outside the app to minimize any possible user confusion.
- When linking users to external offers developers must:
- Ensure links to offers for purchases are shown on a browser, in a webview, or another app store already installed on the user’s device.
- Inform the user about the destination page and its purpose.
- Ensure that URLs do not contain a user’s personally identifiable information in order to protect the user.
- Not redirect or mislead users to a different destination page than that presented in your external offer, or present other false or deceptive information.
- Pay Google the applicable fees for transactions associated with a Play managed app that are concluded outside the app following the external offer as outlined in the section below.
Play service fees
Note: These rates will be updated this Fall per our announcement. You will continue to be invoiced at the current rates until the new program terms are published. At that time, we will apply the new rates and credit your account for any difference in fees paid.
-
Pay Google the applicable fees for transactions associated with a Play app that are concluded outside the app following the external offer. Like our standard service fees, the fees associated with the external offers program reflect the value provided by Android and Play and support our continued investments across Android and Play. These fees consist of two separate components related to the value Play delivers: (a) a two-year time-limited fee for the initial acquisition of the user, and (b) a fee for the ongoing services (including Play’s security and update services) that Play continues to provide to the developer.
-
The following fees apply, starting from the point that a user first completes a transaction within 120 hours of following an external offer (the first external transaction):
- Initial acquisition fee: 5% for auto-renewing subscriptions and 10% for other offers of in-app digital features and services.
- Ongoing services fee: 7% for auto-renewing subscriptions and 17% for other offers of in-app digital features and services.
-
-
The fees above apply to both the first external transaction, and to all digital content subsequently purchased on an external website for use in the app, irrespective of any time window.
-
After the two-year initial acquisition period, a developer may choose to discontinue Play's ongoing services for a particular app. Since users acquired the app through Play with the expectation of services such as parental controls, security scanning, fraud prevention, and continuous app updates, discontinuation of services requires user consent as well. Subsequently, ongoing services and associated fees will no longer apply to these users. Developers are still responsible for reporting transactions involving users who choose to continue receiving ongoing services from Play.
Enroll your app in the external offers program
To enroll in the external offers program, you must complete the following steps:
-
Review the requirements on this page to determine if your app(s) meets all the eligibility criteria.
-
Open Play Console, go to the External offers page (Settings > External offers) and complete any onboarding steps required to enroll in the program (for example, accept the Terms of Service and set up a payment profile as required).
-
Integrate the external offers APIs.
-
Enroll your app(s) directly through Play Console. Once you've identified the apps and countries/regions in which you will be providing external offers, click on a section below to expand it and follow the steps to enroll your app and manage your external offers settings:
- Open Play Console and go to the External offers page (Settings > Linking to external offers).
- Find the app you want to enroll and click Manage in the table. This opens the Monetization setup page for that app.
- Click + Add/Edit countries / regions to select the EEA countries/regions you want to apply the external offers program to for this particular app.
- The list of selectable countries/regions is determined by the program's availability in those countries/regions.
- When you've finished selecting countries/regions, click Save changes.
- These steps need to be completed for each app you want enrolled into the program.
You can manage your external offers program settings, including app level enrollment and profile information, on the External offers page (Settings > Linking to external offers).
- Open Play Console and go to the Invoices page (Settings > Invoices for payments outside Google Play Billing).
- You can select the appropriate user region tab to view the corresponding transaction and service fee information associated with transactions made by users in that region such as your amount due, transactions, invoices and documents, and settings.
- Open Play Console and go to the External offers page (Settings > Linking to external offers).
- Find the app you want to enroll and click Manage in the table. This opens the Monetization setup page for that app.
- Click + Edit country/regions to select the countries/regions you want to update external offers in.
- The list of selectable countries/regions is determined by the program's availability in those countries/regions.
- When you've finished selecting countries/regions, click Save Changes.
5. Report all applicable authorized transactions to Google Play within 24 hours of the external transaction.
If you have any additional questions, you can contact our support team here.
Frequently asked questions
When can I start linking users to app downloads?We're working to make this feature available soon. To ensure a safe and trustworthy experience for users, we are first building essential safety features and finalizing the required APIs. We will share the complete program requirements and technical documentation this Fall. Look for our official announcement for more details.
No! You can learn more about our recently announced changes and stay informed of when the remaining program details and APIs are available by expressing your interest here.
If you are looking to link users to offers for in-app digital items now, you are required to enroll in the current program and comply with the external offers program requirements.
Take the following required actions within the next 3 months, by November 30, 2025:
To continue participating: You must adopt the updated program requirements above. If you have concerns about meeting the deadline, you may request a one-time extension by contacting support. We will also credit you the difference in service fees after the updated service fees are rolled out this Fall.
To stop participating: You can unenroll from the external offers program in the Play Console. Once you do, you must stop linking users to external offers.
No, you do not need to sign up again. With that being said, we will notify you of the updated program requirements, the new APIs and Terms of Service for the additional changes.
You can pre-declare external offer URLs in the Play Console (Settings > Linking to external offers). By default, each app is set up for you to declare a limited number of external offer URLs. If you would like to declare more URLs, contact us here.
Once the updated API is available and you have implemented it for external content links in your app, you will no longer be required to pre-declare them. Instead, you can provide them dynamically with the updated APIs.
No, this program is limited to EEA users. Developers from other regions can enroll in the program to target users in the EEA outside of the Play App.
Currently the EEA includes: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.
Yes, both game and app developers are eligible to apply and participate in the external offers program.
The program is available for apps and games across all form factors including mobile, tablet, Chrome OS, Android TV, and Wear OS.
No, this is an opt-in program only. If you do not wish to direct users outside of the app, no action is required.
Yes,after successfully signing up to the external offers program, you can select which apps you want to enroll for external offers at any given time using the Play Console.
You can change the external payments program enrollment in a market for a given app package through your Play Console settings. Any updates will be effective immediately, including changes to applicable service fees.
It is easy to extend your existing integration with Google Play’s billing system to utilize external offers APIs. The APIs are built upon the same design patterns and principles as our Play Billing Library and Play Developer APIs. This means they are compatible with your existing designs and will be mostly familiar to your teams. In our developer integration guide, we provide detailed guidelines and resources on how to get started. We welcome developer feedback on these APIs and any additional resources that would be helpful.
If you have any questions or feedback about the external offers APIs, please contact us here.
Apps in the external offers program are only allowed to use alternative billing without user choice, but the use of user choice billing or Google Play billing in combination with the external offer links is no longer supported. This change aligns the billing experience with the new flexibility you have to direct users out of the app.
Developers enrolled before August 19, 2025 will have until November 30, 2025, a 3-month transition period, to adopt these changes.
Apps in the external offers program can only use their own billing service by signing up for and complying with the alternate billing without user choice program. The use of Google Play Billing or User Choice Billing in combination with the external offer links is no longer supported. This change aligns the billing experience with the new flexibility you have to direct users out of the app.
Developers enrolled before August 19, 2025 will have until November 30, 2025, a 3-month transition period, to adopt these changes.
Play's fees support our investment in Android and Google Play and reflect the value provided by Android and Play, including enabling us to distribute Android for free and provide the continuously growing suite of tools and services that help developers build successful businesses, all while keeping our platforms safe and secure for billions of users worldwide.
To comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulation, developers may enroll in the external offers program. In order to continue our investments in the ecosystem, developers who participate with the external offers program will be subject to a new service fee model for user purchases associated with a Play app that are concluded outside the app, consisting of an initial acquisition fee and an ongoing services fee.