Google Play subscription tracking

Developer assistance needed

You’ll need help from your development team to set up this integration. Please share this guide with them.

Integration overview

Real-Time Developer Notifications (RTDN) is Google Play’s server-to-server service that sends a real-time message whenever a subscription’s status changes.

By connecting Google Play RTDN to Pushwoosh, you can react to cancellations without building your own backend infrastructure. When a user turns off auto-renewal for a subscription in their Google Play account, Google notifies Pushwoosh, and Pushwoosh fires a PW_SubscriptionCancel event on the matching user profile.

Примечание

This integration supports Android subscriptions (Google Play RTDN). To track iOS subscriptions, see App Store subscription tracking.

Integration type

Source: Real-Time Developer Notifications are sent from Google Play to Pushwoosh.

Synchronized event

Event name	Description	Attributes
PW_SubscriptionCancel	Fired when a user turns off auto-renewal for a Google Play subscription.	productID — the Google Play product identifier of the canceled subscription.

How it works

A Google Play notification carries no Pushwoosh identifier. It includes only a purchase token and the app’s packageName. So your app tags each purchase with the identifier Pushwoosh needs, and Pushwoosh reads it back from the purchase when a cancellation arrives.

1. A user disables auto-renewal for their subscription in Google Play.
2. Google Play publishes an RTDN message to Pushwoosh’s shared topic.
3. Pushwoosh reads the purchase’s obfuscatedAccountId, which your app set to <AppCode>:<hwid> at purchase time.
4. Pushwoosh resolves the device whose HWID matches, finds the user bound to it, and posts the PW_SubscriptionCancel event for that user.

Important

The match between a Google Play purchase and a Pushwoosh user relies on the obfuscatedAccountId. If your app doesn’t set this value at purchase time, Pushwoosh receives the notification but no event is posted. It is set at purchase and cannot be backfilled for existing subscriptions. See how to set the account identifier.

Use case: Win back churning subscribers

A cancellation is rarely instant. A user who disables auto-renewal keeps their subscription until the end of the paid period. That window is your best chance to win them back.

With the PW_SubscriptionCancel event, you can launch a Customer Journey the moment auto-renewal is turned off. Send a push notification with a retention offer, follow up with an email highlighting features the user would lose, or show an in-app message with a discount on their next renewal. You can reach users before the subscription actually lapses.

Setting up the integration

Before you start, make sure you have a Pushwoosh app with FCM configured (already required for push), a Google Play app with a subscription, and Play Console admin access.

Set the account identifier at purchase

Pushwoosh identifies the right user from the device’s HWID, combined with your Application Code. The Pushwoosh Android SDK exposes a helper, getSubscriptionAccountId(), that returns this value already formatted as <AppCode>:<hwid>. Pass it to BillingFlowParams.setObfuscatedAccountId() when you launch the Google Play billing flow.

Kotlin

val billingParams = BillingFlowParams.newBuilder()
    .setProductDetailsParamsList(productDetailsParamsList)
    // Tag the purchase with the Pushwoosh account identifier "<AppCode>:<hwid>"
    .setObfuscatedAccountId(Pushwoosh.getInstance().subscriptionAccountId)
    .build()

billingClient.launchBillingFlow(activity, billingParams)

Java

BillingFlowParams billingParams = BillingFlowParams.newBuilder()
        .setProductDetailsParamsList(productDetailsParamsList)
        // Tag the purchase with the Pushwoosh account identifier "<AppCode>:<hwid>"
        .setObfuscatedAccountId(Pushwoosh.getInstance().getSubscriptionAccountId())
        .build();

billingClient.launchBillingFlow(activity, billingParams);

Примечание

Call getSubscriptionAccountId() after the SDK is initialized. It returns an empty string if the Application Code or HWID isn’t available yet. Google limits the obfuscated account id to 64 characters. The Pushwoosh <AppCode>:<hwid> value stays within that limit.

Осторожно

If your app overrides the Pushwoosh HWID with a custom value, getSubscriptionAccountId() reflects it automatically. Don’t build the identifier by hand. Always use the helper so the value matches the device’s HWID in Pushwoosh, or the event cannot be attributed.

Point Real-Time Developer Notifications at Pushwoosh

1. In Google Play Console, go to Monetize → Monetization setup.
2. Find Real-time developer notifications and set the Topic name to:

projects/pw-playstore-subscriptions/topics/play-rtdn

3. Click Save. Publish permission is already granted to Google’s notification service, so there’s nothing else to configure here.

Grant Pushwoosh’s service account

1. In Google Play Console, go to Users and permissions → Invite new user.
2. Enter the Pushwoosh service account email:

play-api@pw-playstore-subscriptions.iam.gserviceaccount.com

3. Under App permissions, add your app and grant View financial data, orders, and cancellation survey responses (plus the read-only app information permission).
4. Click Save. A service account doesn’t need to accept the invite. Access is active immediately.

Confirm the event in Pushwoosh

When Pushwoosh processes the first Google Play notification, it registers PW_SubscriptionCancel in your project with a string attribute productID. After a test cancellation, open Audience → Events to verify the event appears. It is then ready for segmentation, statistics, and Customer Journeys.

Build your win-back campaign

Create a Customer Journey with a trigger-based entry on the PW_SubscriptionCancel event, and add the messages you want to send to users who are about to churn.

Testing

To verify the integration end to end:

1. In Google Play Console, open Monetization setup and click Send test notification. It should report success, confirming the topic is wired correctly.
2. Make a subscription purchase with the account identifier set as described above, then cancel it from Play Store → Subscriptions → Cancel.
3. In Pushwoosh Control Panel, open the user profile and go to Events history.
4. Confirm that PW_SubscriptionCancel appears within a few moments.