Google Play real-time developer notifications setup for subscriptions

1. 01

   Create the Google Play app

   Add a Google Play app in RevenueDot with your package name. Its public SDK key starts with goog_. Start free on Cloud first if you have no account.

2. 02

   Create a service account

   In Google Cloud enable the Google Play Android Developer API, create a service account and download a JSON key. In Play Console, Users and permissions, invite the service account's email with View app information, View financial data and Manage orders and subscriptions.

3. 03

   Save the key and check it

   Drop the JSON file on the app in RevenueDot and click Check credentials. New Play Console permissions can take up to 36 hours to apply. Until then the check says the account works but cannot see the app yet.

4. 04

   Create the Pub/Sub topic

   In Google Cloud Pub/Sub create a topic. Give google-play-developer-notifications@system.gserviceaccount.com the Pub/Sub Publisher role on it.

5. 05

   Add a push subscription

   Add a subscription to the topic with delivery type Push and your app's notification URL as the endpoint. It looks like https://api.revenuedot.app/v1/notifications/google/{app_id}.

6. 06

   Turn on notifications in Play Console

   In Play Console open Monetize with Play, Monetization setup. Paste the full topic name (projects/<project>/topics/<topic>), turn on subscriptions, voided purchases and one-time products, and click Send test notification. The app's status in RevenueDot turns Ready.

• RevenueDot stores the raw message once, keyed by message ID, and copies it to a forwarding URL when you set one.
• It then reads the purchase again from the Play Developer API, so a forged message cannot grant access.
• Voided-purchase notifications record refunds.
• You can also require Google-signed pushes: turn on authentication on the subscription and save the same audience and service account on the app. An unsigned push then gets 401.

Create a subscription product in RevenueDot with store_identifier set to subscriptionId:basePlanId, for example pro:monthly. For one-time products use the product ID. Android purchases do not name the base plan, so RevenueDot gives a bare subscription ID the union of its base plans' entitlements when it builds the offline entitlement map.

curl -s -X POST "$REVENUEDOT_URL/v2/projects/$PROJECT_ID/apps" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SECRET_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name":"Scanner (Android)","type":"play_store","play_store":{"package_name":"com.example.scanner"}}'

curl -s "$REVENUEDOT_URL/v2/projects/$PROJECT_ID/apps/$APP_ID/store_settings" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SECRET_KEY" | jq -r .notification_url

Before you rely on a store action, run it once against a Play test track. See testing with license testers.

• Refund and revoke a subscription, cancel it (turn auto-renew off) or defer the next renewal by up to 365 days.
• Refund a one-time purchase.
• Restore a purchase from a Google order ID such as GPA.1234-5678-9012-34567, which RevenueDot turns into a purchase token with Google's Orders API.
• Create a subscription with one listing in Play Console from your catalog. Add base plans and prices in Play Console.