If your App and Team are eligible for Premium Apps and you have completed the Onboarding step, you are ready to start adding SKUs and creating your App’s Store view. If the Team Owner hasn’t yet completed the Onboarding flow, review the Premium Apps Onboarding article for guidance. This article will cover what SKUs are, managing them from the Developer Portal, and curating your App’s Store view.
Table of Contents
So What is a SKU?
A SKU, or stock-keeping unit, is a tool used to keep track of inventory. In the context of Premium Apps, premium features can be thought of as "products" that an app or activity offers. These “products” can be tracked through their own SKU and managed in the Developer Portal of your application.
Types of SKUs
There are 4 types of SKUs supported by Premium Apps at this time:
Subscriptions:
Personal Subscription
- A recurring subscription that allows a user to purchase access to an app’s premium features across all servers they are in with that app.
Guild Subscription
- A recurring subscription that allows a server owner to purchase access to your app’s premium features that can be offered to all members on that server.
One-Time Purchases (OTP):
Durable OTPs
- A one-time purchase that is permanent and is not subject to either renewal or consumption, such as lifetime access to an app's premium features.
Consumable OTPs
- A one-time, non-renewable purchase that provides access, such as a temporary power-up or boost in a game.
Now that you know what a SKU is and the different types of SKUs available, you can start managing your premium features in the Developer Portal. Your app can feature as many published Subscription SKU and OTP SKUs as desired, with a limit of 50.
Creating SKUs
⚠️ As described more in our Monetization Terms, you must accurately and fully describe your premium offering. Furthermore, in compliance with the Monetization Policy, any names, descriptions, icons, and other text or imagery representing your premium SKU cannot contain any bad or harmful content.
In the app’s developer portal page under the Monetization tab, Team Owners and Admins can create SKUs and Publish them to the Store view.
Several options can be customized for your app’s or activity's premium offerings:
- A name (max 80 characters)
- A description (max 160 characters)
- An icon
- A banner
You're also able to customize a list of up to 6 benefits. These are displayed on the Premium App Store view, the App Directory, and during the purchase and cancellation flows to explain to users the benefits of your premium offering. These benefits can have:
- An emoji, standard or custom
- A name (max 80 characters)
- A description (max 160 characters)
Managing SKUs
When Managing SKUs from the Developer Portal, you will initially be able to create SKUs but once created, you will be able to publish, unpublish, and delete them as well. Below is a list of states a SKU can be in and actions to take, once it is created:
STATES:
Unpublished
This is the state a SKU starts in. Unavailable means it cannot be purchased
Published
This state means a SKU can be purchased
Available in Store
There will be a shop icon next to Published Apps that are available in your Shop. If there is not a shop icon but your application is still in a Published state, the SKU is still accessible from the API.
ACTIONS:
Publish SKU
This action sets a SKU state to Available. When publishing a SKU you will have 2 options. Available via Store & API will be the choice if you are setting up a Store. Available via API only will be better suited for Activities.
Unpublish SKU
This action sets a SKU state to Unavailable. Keep in mind that when you unpublish a SKU, it won't cancel subscriptions right away, but subscriptions will not renew if the end of the billing cycle is reached while a SKU is in the Unavailable state. Once desired changes are made, you will want to republish the SKU to avoid any lapse in billing cycles. Unpublishing does not delete a SKU.
Add to Store/Remove from Store
This action applies only to published SKUs. It lets you control whether your SKU appears in the Store or is only accessible through the API.
Delete SKU
This action, found in the edit SKU page, removes a SKU from the UI—however, it is not completely deleted. Deleted SKUs will still appear in the List Entitlements endpoint and Analytics. When you delete a SKU, existing subscriptions continue until their billing cycle ends, at which point they will not renew. If you experience any issues deleting SKUs, please reach out to Developer Support.
Edit SKU
If you wish to change a SKU that is published, you can do so at any time by first unpublishing the desired SKU. Keep in mind that when you unpublish a SKU, it won't cancel subscriptions right away, but subscriptions will not renew if the end of the billing cycle is reached while a SKU is in the Unavailable state. Once desired changes are made, you will want to republish the SKU to avoid any lapse in billing cycles.
If you edit a SKU to change the price, keep in mind that this would only change the price for new subscribers. Current subscribers will continue to pay the price at which they initially purchased the SKU.
Premium App Store View
The Premium App Store view is a feature aimed at enhancing the Premium Apps experience for both developers and users, alike. In addition to the App Directory, the Store view showcases premium features to users right from a Bot’s profile page in any server the App is in.
Setting Up Your Store
Developers have the ability to set up a Store Page in the Developer Portal, when managing SKUs. To set up your Premium App’s Store view take the following steps:
- Create a SKU
- Add a SKU icon, banner and benefits
- Integrate the SKU into your app
- Publish a SKU to your Store
Managing SKUs has been improved with the addition of icons and banners to bring life to your offerings and Store, along with easy to use buttons to publish/unpublish and edit a store listing. A preview of the store page is also available to view how it would look to end users and edits to your Store view can be published in real-time.
Accessing the Store
Users can now access an App’s store page from the Bot’s profile in a server. This allows users to view available subscription and one-time purchases, select a subscription to view its perks, benefits and details, and even make purchases directly from an App’s Store page!
Deep Linking
Once your SKUs and Store are all set up, they can be surfaced more easily to Users with deep linking. Deep linking allows you to link directly to a SKU or Store using our App Directory Store URL scheme. Visit the Managing SKUs documentation to learn more about Linking To A Specific SKU or Linking To Your Store.
Integrating SKUs
Once SKUs have been created, you can integrate them into your App or Activity via the API. You can learn more about Integrating SKUs in your App here. When a SKU has been published and successfully integrated it will then be available in the App’s Store view.
Analytics
In the Monetization section of the Developer Portal, you will also see an Analytics tab. When reviewing a Premium App’s analytics data, a couple of considerations should be made.
Availability
The available data can be considered up-to-date as of 24 hours prior for Subscriptions and 30 days prior for One-Time Purchases. Any representation of data will reflect that of the previous day for Subscriptions and the previous month for One-Time Purchases, based on system updates. This applies to user and revenue data, alike.
Accuracy
If after reviewing the analytics, it appears the data is inaccurate and the aforementioned time periods have been taken into account, keep in mind that only data for subscribers who have the Use data to improve Discord setting enabled will be represented. Users that do not have this setting enabled will not reflect in a Premium App’s analytics. However, this only applies to user data and does not apply to revenue data. Any representation of revenue data will be accurate based on the above mentioned availability period.
⚠️ If you are not seeing SKU data populate, please ensure you have selected a SKU from the dropdown next to the date range, toward the top of the Analytics page.
Exporting Data
If you are interested in exporting your Premium App’s Analytics data for your own use, you can do so in the form of a CSV at the bottom of the Analytics page.
After reviewing this and other linked articles, if you have any questions about Premium Apps SKU setup, please reach out to our Developer Support team!