---
title: "What does the Google Play notification SUBSCRIPTION_PURCHASED mean?"
description: "SUBSCRIPTION_PURCHASED (4) means a new subscription was purchased. Fetch its state, grant access and acknowledge it within three days or Google refunds it."
url: https://revenuedot.app/docs/notifications/google-subscription-purchased
---

# What does the Google Play notification SUBSCRIPTION_PURCHASED mean?

The Google Play notification SUBSCRIPTION_PURCHASED means a new subscription was purchased and has a new purchase token.

## Quick facts

| | |
|---|---|
| Notification | `subscriptionNotification.notificationType` 4, `SUBSCRIPTION_PURCHASED` |
| Where | Google Play real-time developer notifications (Pub/Sub, `DeveloperNotification`) |
| Sent by | Google Play, as a Cloud Pub/Sub push to your endpoint |
| What Google says | A new subscription was purchased. |

## What triggers it

- A customer bought a subscription in your app or in the Play Store.
- A resubscribe after the old subscription expired is a new purchase with a brand new purchase token and no `linkedPurchaseToken`.
- An upgrade, downgrade or signup after cancelling from your app creates a new token with `linkedPurchaseToken` pointing to the old one.

## What your server should do

1. Do not trust the message for the state. Google says a notification only tells you the purchase state changed; call the Google Play Developer API (`purchases.subscriptionsv2.get`) with the purchase token to get the full state.
2. Call `purchases.subscriptionsv2.get`, check `subscriptionState` is `SUBSCRIPTION_STATE_ACTIVE`, and grant access.
3. Acknowledge the purchase within three days. Google says an unacknowledged purchase is refunded and revoked automatically.
4. Use `linkedPurchaseToken` or `outOfAppPurchaseContext` to connect the new token to the right customer.
5. Answer 2xx once you have handled the message, and skip a `messageId` you have seen: Google recommends checking the uniqueness of message IDs so a redelivery does not make a second API call.

## Example

```javascript
// A Pub/Sub push body: the notification is base64 JSON in message.data.
const body = { message: { messageId: "136969346945", data: Buffer.from(JSON.stringify({"version":"1.0","packageName":"com.example.app","eventTimeMillis":"1790800914000","subscriptionNotification":{"version":"1.0","notificationType":4,"purchaseToken":"PURCHASE_TOKEN"}})).toString("base64") } };

function decide(body) {
  const n = JSON.parse(Buffer.from(body.message.data, "base64").toString("utf8"));
  if (!(n.subscriptionNotification?.notificationType === 4)) return "ignore";
  return "fetch the subscription, grant access, acknowledge within three days";
}

console.log(decide(body));
```

*Run-checked: `npm run check:snippets` runs this snippet with Node and compares its output with `acknowledge within three days` (checked 2026-10-03).*

## How RevenueDot handles it

RevenueDot answers every handled message with 2xx and every temporary failure with 5xx so Pub/Sub redelivers it. For subscription types it re-reads the subscription from Google with `purchases.subscriptionsv2.get` and applies that state, and it acknowledges a new purchase if the app has not. A purchase RevenueDot has not seen is applied only when the app's **Track new purchases from server-to-server notifications** setting is on. A token RevenueDot has not stored gives an `INITIAL_PURCHASE` event; a replacement token joins the customer of its `linkedPurchaseToken`, and the old chain ends with a `PRODUCT_CHANGE` event instead of a `CANCELLATION` or `EXPIRATION`. RevenueDot acknowledges the purchase itself, and if that fails it answers 5xx so Pub/Sub retries.

## Related

- [What does the Google Play notification SUBSCRIPTION_RENEWED mean?](https://revenuedot.app/docs/notifications/google-subscription-renewed.md)
- [What does the Google Play notification SUBSCRIPTION_RESTARTED mean?](https://revenuedot.app/docs/notifications/google-subscription-restarted.md)
- [What does the Google Play notification SUBSCRIPTION_CANCELED mean?](https://revenuedot.app/docs/notifications/google-subscription-canceled.md)
- [Which webhook events does RevenueDot send?](https://revenuedot.app/docs/api/webhook-events.md)
- [Set up Google Play notifications in RevenueDot](https://revenuedot.app/docs/guides/google-play.md)

## Source

- [Google: Real-time developer notifications reference guide](https://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/rtdn-reference)
- [Google: Subscription lifecycle](https://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/lifecycle/subscriptions)
- [RevenueDot server: stores/google/notifications.ts (how the message is received)](https://github.com/revenuedot/revenuedot/blob/main/apps/server/src/stores/google/notifications.ts)
- [RevenueDot server: stores/google/sync.ts (how the purchase is re-read and applied)](https://github.com/revenuedot/revenuedot/blob/main/apps/server/src/stores/google/sync.ts)
- [RevenueDot server: stores/google/map.ts (how Google's state becomes a stored purchase)](https://github.com/revenuedot/revenuedot/blob/main/apps/server/src/stores/google/map.ts)
- [RevenueDot core: events.ts (how a change becomes a webhook event)](https://github.com/revenuedot/revenuedot/blob/main/packages/core/src/events.ts)

Checked: 2026-10-03