What does the Google Play notification SUBSCRIPTION_REVOKED mean?

The Google Play notification SUBSCRIPTION_REVOKED means a subscription was taken away before its expiration time, so access must end now.

Quick facts#


Notification	`subscriptionNotification.notificationType` 12, `SUBSCRIPTION_REVOKED`
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What Google says	A subscription has been revoked from the user before the expiration time.

What triggers it#

Your backend revoked it with purchases.subscriptionsv2.revoke, or the purchase was charged back.
The subscription resource has subscriptionState set to SUBSCRIPTION_STATE_EXPIRED.
Unlike a cancellation, the customer does not keep access to the period end.

What your server should do#

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.
Revoke the customer's entitlement immediately.
Record the revocation for support and refund reports.
Offer a new subscription if the revocation was in error.
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":12,"purchaseToken":"PURCHASE_TOKEN"}})).toString("base64") } };

function decide(body) {
  const n = JSON.parse(Buffer.from(body.message.data, "base64").toString("utf8"));
  if (!(n.subscriptionNotification?.notificationType === 12)) return "ignore";
  return "revoke access immediately";
}

console.log(decide(body));

Run-checked: npm run check:snippets runs this snippet with Node and compares its output with revoke access immediately (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. RevenueDot marks the current period refunded at the event time and cuts its expiry to that time. It sends CANCELLATION with cancel_reason: CUSTOMER_SUPPORT and a negative price, the same as a refund. If Google no longer knows the token, it refunds from what it stored.

Source#

Checked: 2026-10-03

Edit this page on GitHub ↗ View as Markdown Last updated October 3, 2026