Add subscription via google play.

[M8hamm9d]

Describe the feature

Add subscription via Google Play.

Use cases

Add subscription via Google Play.

Examples

No response

Anything else?

No response

[mik-laj]

Can you tell me a little more? For what purpose? Do you mean Nabu Cloud subscriptions? Are you aware that Google Play takes a 30% commission on each subscription?

[M8hamm9d]

Yes, I’m aware of the 30% commission on Google Play.
The idea is to provide an additional and more convenient payment option for users. Many Android users prefer subscribing through Google Play because it’s faster, easier, and doesn’t require entering card details. It also helps users who rely on Google Play balance or gift cards.
So the goal is simply to improve accessibility and increase conversion rates by offering another subscription method, not to replace the existing ones.

[mik-laj]

I understand the idea - Google Play does feel convenient for some users, and gift cards can help people who don’t want to share card details. But I don’t think Play Billing would actually help the Home Assistant community for a few reasons.

Home Assistant users are not a “casual mobile audience”.
They’re typically power users, engineers, people comfortable with servers, networking, automation, and configuring integrations.
This group already knows how to pay through Stripe or PayPal, and subscription decisions are not impulsive purchases made inside an app.

For most Android apps, Play Billing improves conversion because payments happen inside a lightweight, casual environment.
But HA Cloud subscriptions are different - they’re usually purchased deliberately, after setup, and from a browser, not from inside the Android UI.
Moving this into Google Play wouldn’t meaningfully increase conversion, because the barrier isn’t the payment platform - it’s simply whether someone wants the cloud features.

Another important point is platform rules.
If we enable Google Play Billing, Google requires that:

• all purchases inside the app must use their billing system,
• and the app cannot promote or redirect to alternative payment methods.

So adding Play Billing doesn’t “add another option”.
It effectively means losing the existing options inside the mobile app experience.
From the user’s perspective, we go from “multiple flexible ways to pay” to one store-controlled method with platform restrictions and bigger commission.

This reduces choice instead of increasing it.

And because Home Assistant is a cross-platform, open ecosystem, locking the Android app into Play Billing introduces fragmentation:

• Android users would have different pricing and rules than iOS or web users,
• Subscriptions bought on Play wouldn’t integrate smoothly with accounts bought elsewhere,
• Subscriptions bought on Play wouldn't be transferable to other people.

So even aside from the financial downsides, the technical and ecosystem downsides are significant:
less freedom, less consistency, less user choice, and more platform restrictions.

For a project that values openness, portability, and independence, Google Play Billing doesn’t align well with the overall philosophy.