rc-payment-recovery

Payment Recovery

Failed renewals on Google Play move a subscription through two states: grace period (user keeps access while Google retries the card) and account hold (access revoked until the user fixes the payment method). With RevenueCat, both states land in CustomerInfo automatically, and Google's in app message shows by default.

Phase 1: Understand

Three things happen when a renewal fails:

State	Access	How RevenueCat surfaces it	User sees
Grace period	Retained	entitlement.isActive == true and billingIssueDetectedAt != null	Google in app snackbar by default
Account hold	Revoked	entitlement.isActive == false and billingIssueDetectedAt != null	Google in app snackbar by default
Recovered	Retained	billingIssueDetectedAt == null	Nothing

Two signals matter in the SDK:

• EntitlementInfo.billingIssueDetectedAt is non null from the moment Google reports a billing problem until the user resolves it.
• EntitlementInfo.isActive tells you whether they still have access.

On the backend, a BILLING_ISSUE webhook fires once per transition. You do not decode RTDNs.

Phase 2: Plan

Before you write app code, decide what you actually need. Most apps need none.

Ask:

1. Do you want the default Google in app message? If yes, do nothing. The SDK calls showInAppMessagesIfNeeded on BillingClient connect.
2. Do you want your own banner or dialog? If yes, read billingIssueDetectedAt from CustomerInfo and branch on isActive.
3. Do you want to gate the message to specific screens? If yes, disable the automatic call and invoke showInAppMessagesIfNeeded(activity) yourself.
4. Do you need a server side flag (for example, to send a recovery email)? If yes, handle the BILLING_ISSUE webhook. No app code required.

If you only want the default behavior, stop here.

Phase 3: Execute

Default (recommended)

Leave automatic in app messages on. This is the default:

PurchasesConfiguration.Builder(context, apiKey)
    .showInAppMessagesAutomatically(true)
    .build()