How Do I Enable in-App Purchases on Android?

If you’re an Android app developer, you may want to include in-app purchases in your app to monetize it. In-app purchases allow users to buy additional features, premium content, or virtual goods within the app. In this tutorial, we’ll see how to enable in-app purchases on Android using Google Play Billing Library.

Step 1: Set up your project

Before you can enable in-app purchases, you need to set up your Android Studio project with the necessary dependencies and permissions.

• Add the Google Play Billing Library dependency: To use Google Play Billing Library, add the following dependency to your app’s build.gradle file:

dependencies { implementation 'com.android.billingclient:billing:3.0.0' }

• Add the BILLING permission: To use Google Play Billing Library, add the following permission to your app’s AndroidManifest.xml file:

<uses-permission android:name="com.vending.BILLING" />

Step 2: Create a billing client

To use Google Play Billing Library, you need to create a billing client instance that connects to Google Play.

• Create a BillingClient instance: To create a billing client instance, call the following code snippet:

BillingClient billingClient = BillingClient.newBuilder(context).enablePendingPurchases().setListener(purchasesUpdatedListener).build();

Where context is the activity or application context and purchasesUpdatedListener is an object that implements PurchasesUpdatedListener interface.

• Start connection: To start a connection with Google Play, call the following code snippet:

billingClient.startConnection(new BillingClientStateListener() { @Override public void onBillingSetupFinished(BillingResult billingResult) { if (billingResult.getResponseCode() == BillingClient.BillingResponseCode.OK) { // The billing client is ready } } @Override public void onBillingServiceDisconnected() { // Try to restart the connection on the next request to // Google Play by calling the startConnection() method. } });

Step 3: Query available in-app products

Once you have a billing client instance, you can query Google Play for available in-app products that you want to offer.

• Create a SkuDetailsParams object: To query for in-app products, create a SkuDetailsParams object that specifies the product IDs and type.

SkuDetailsParams params = SkuDetailsParams.newBuilder().setSkusList(skuList).setType(BillingClient.SkuType.INAPP).build();

Where skuList is a list of product IDs that you want to query.

• Query for the SkuDetails: To query for the SkuDetails, call the following code snippet:

billingClient.querySkuDetailsAsync(params, new SkuDetailsResponseListener() { @Override public void onSkuDetailsResponse(BillingResult billingResult, List<SkuDetails> skuDetailsList) { if (billingResult.OK && skuDetailsList != null) { // Handle the response } } });

Where skuDetailsList is a list of SkuDetails objects that represent the available in-app products.

Step 4: Initiate a purchase

Once you have the SkuDetails of the in-app product, you can initiate a purchase by calling the following code snippet:


BillingFlowParams params = BillingFlowParams.setSkuDetails(skuDetails).build();
int responseCode = billingClient.launchBillingFlow(activity, params);


Where skuDetails is the SkuDetails object of the in-app product that you want to purchase and activity is the activity that launches the billing flow.

Step 5: Handle purchase results

After a purchase is completed, you need to handle the result by implementing PurchasesUpdatedListener interface.

• Handle purchases: To handle purchases, call the following code snippet:

@Override public void onPurchasesUpdated(BillingResult billingResult, List<Purchase> purchases) { if (billingResult.OK && purchases != null) { for (Purchase purchase : purchases) { // Handle the purchase } } }

Where purchases is a list of Purchase objects that represent the purchased in-app products.

• Handle errors: If there’s an error during the purchase process, you’ll receive an error code. You should handle errors according to their type.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we’ve seen how to enable in-app purchases on Android using Google Play Billing Library. We started by setting up our project with necessary dependencies and permissions.

Then we created a billing client instance and queried for available in-app products. Finally, we initiated a purchase and handled its result. With this knowledge, you can now monetize your Android app using in-app purchases.