After the purchase: activating the subscription in the app

The payment is only half of a Web2App Funnel. The other half is the handover: the subscriber must open your app and find their subscription active, without typing anything. Purchasely does this with a redemption link, delivered on the success screen and by email, that the SDK consumes when it opens the app. This page describes the journey and its edge cases; the SDK integration page covers the code.

The journey

Checkout completed. Stripe confirms the payment. Purchasely creates the subscription, owned for now by the anonymous web visitor.
Success screen. The funnel lands on the Redeem step, which always presents two steps: step 1, the App Store and Play Store links to install your app if it is not there yet; step 2, the redemption button that opens the app and activates the subscription. On a phone, tapping the button opens your app directly through its custom URL scheme.
Receipt email. In parallel, Purchasely emails the customer a receipt at the email address typed at checkout. It carries your app name and icon, the plan, and the same two steps as the success screen: the App Store and Play Store links to download the app, then the redemption link to activate the subscription. The subscriber can use it later, on any device.
The app opens. The SDK detects the redemption link, calls Purchasely, activates the subscription for this app user and refreshes their entitlements. It shows a confirmation, and your app can react to it.

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No sign-in required, but identify first if you have accounts
The subscriber does not need an account to activate the subscription: the link is enough, and Purchasely attaches the subscription to the app user who opened it. If your app has accounts, make sure the user is signed in before the link is consumed: the subscription is then attached to their account, or transferred to it automatically if it was created for an anonymous web visitor, and your webhooks report the transfer, exactly as for in-app subscriptions. A link consumed while the user is anonymous leaves the subscription on the anonymous user, and a later sign-in does not move it. See SDK integration for the recommended pattern.

The redemption link

The link is unique to the subscription and works once: when it is consumed, the subscription is attached to the app user who opened it. If the subscriber later opens a link that has expired or has already been used, Purchasely automatically emails a new redemption link to the address entered at the Stripe checkout. Opening the link again on the device where it was already redeemed simply confirms the subscription.

Rule	Detail
Validity	A link is valid for 4 hours after it is issued.
Expired or already-used link	When the subscriber opens an expired or already-used link, from the email or from the success screen, Purchasely automatically emails a new link to the address entered at checkout and tells the subscriber to check their inbox. Nothing to do on your side.
Any device	The link works on the device where the purchase was made and on any other one, for example a purchase on desktop and an activation on the phone, from the email.
App not installed	Step 1 of the success screen links to the App Store and Play Store; the email carries the same store links. Once the app is installed, the subscriber taps the redemption button, or opens the link from the email, to activate.
Subscription no longer active	If the subscription was cancelled or refunded before activation, the link shows an unavailable page and no email is sent.

The receipt email is sent from [email protected] with your app name as sender, or from your own address once your email domain is configured. For sandbox purchases, its subject starts with [Sandbox].

What happens to the subscription

Situation in the app	Result
The app user is anonymous	The subscription is attached to this anonymous user. A later sign-in does not transfer it: to attach it to an account, the subscriber must open a fresh redemption link while signed in. To avoid this, identify the user before the link is consumed, see SDK integration.
The app user is identified (your app already called the SDK's login method)	The subscription is attached to their account directly. If it had been created for an anonymous web visitor, it is transferred automatically and your webhooks report the transfer.
The user already owns the subscription (same link opened again)	Entitlements are refreshed, nothing else changes.

From then on, the subscription behaves like any Purchasely subscription: it appears in the user's subscriptions in the SDK, in the Console, in your dashboards, and its lifecycle is reported in your webhooks with the web2app channel. Renewals, cancellations and refunds come from Stripe and are handled by Purchasely.

What the subscriber sees in the app

The SDK handles the activation and shows a short confirmation. Three outcomes exist:

Outcome	Message shown by the SDK
Success	The subscription is active.
Expired link	The link has expired and a new one was sent to the checkout email address, shown partially masked.
Invalid link	The link does not match this app or its subscription is no longer available.

You can replace these messages with your own experience, for example a welcome Screen or a sign-up prompt: see SDK integration.

The context follows the user

Along with the subscription, the app receives the context of the web journey: the UTM parameters of the campaign, the click identifiers and the user attributes collected in the funnel that you chose to keep. They are available in the SDK right after the activation, so the first session can skip the questions already answered and start where the funnel stopped.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Cause and solution
The button on the success screen does nothing.	The app is not installed, or the app scheme in the Console does not match the one declared in the app. See Setup 3.
The app opens but nothing happens.	The app runs an SDK older than 6.1, or the URL is not forwarded to the SDK. See SDK integration.
The subscriber says the link has expired or was already used.	Expected: a new email was sent automatically to the checkout address. Ask them to open the latest email.
The subscriber never received the email.	Check the spam folder and the address typed at checkout. The email is sent within a minute of the purchase.
The subscription is on the wrong account, or on no account.	The link was consumed while another user, or no user, was signed in on the device. Have the subscriber open a fresh redemption link from the email while signed in with the right account.