About Receipt validation

Advertisers can use Receipt validation to validate and measure in-app purchases and subscriptions from the Play Store and the App Store.

Receipt validation is free of charge to all account plans.

How does Receipt validation work?

The receipt validation flow is as follows:

1. The user performs an in-app purchase.
2. The app store notifies the app of the successful purchase.
3. The app developer calls the SDK's receipt validation method: validateAndLogInAppPurchase
4. The SDK calls the AppsFlyer validation service.
5. AppsFlyer validates the purchase to make sure it is not fraudulent.
6. Upon successful validation, AppsFlyer logs the purchase or subscription event.
7. If receipt validation fails, the event is displayed in the Blocked in-app events raw data report (available to Protect360 subscribers) and on the Live events viewer page with the parameter af_validated set to false.
8. The AppsFlyer validation service transfers the response to the SDK.
9. The SDK transfers the receipt validation response to the app (either success or failure).

Activate Receipt validation

To activate Receipt validation, follow these steps:

1. In AppsFlyer, from the side menu, open Settings and under ROI360 select Revenue Settings.
2. Open the Purchases & subscriptions tab.
3. Under 1 Choose Product type, select Receipt validation.
4. Click Save and next to proceed to set up Receipt validation.

Set up Receipt validation

For more information, see Set up receipt validation.

In-app purchase events and parameters for Receipt validation

All predefined events share the following properties:

• They are processed as S2S events.
• They are available in the dashboards and raw data reports as organic or non-organic in-app events.
• They can be sent via postbacks to partners.
• They can be used in SKAN Conversion Studio.

The events recorded for in-app purchases are:

• af_purchase - Production
• af_purchase_sandbox_sdk - Sandbox

Subscription events:

• af_ars_trial_started - Subscription with the trial period started.
• af_ars_subscriptions_started - Paid subscription (without trial period) started, production
• af_ars_sandbox_sdk - Trial or paid subscription started, sandbox

The event includes the following predefined parameters:

• af_product_id
• af_transaction_id (iOS only)
• af_purchase_token (Android only)
• af_revenue (for sandbox events - af_sandbox_revenue)
• af_currency
• af_store (app_store / play_store)
• af_environment (sandbox/production)
• af_validation_type (receipt_validation)

Additional custom parameters:

• Any additional custom parameters sent in the SDK call will appear in the custom_data field in raw data reports

Switch from ROI360 store revenue to Receipt validation

If you currently use ROI360 store revenue and want to switch to Receipt validation, follow these steps:

1. In AppsFlyer, from the side menu, open Settings and under ROI360 select Revenue Settings.
2. In the Purchases & subscriptions tab, confirm that the Product type is currently set to ROI360.
3. Click .
4. A message appears outlining the impact of switching to Receipt validation:
   • ROI360 features such as refund attribution, subscription renewal measurement, and net revenue calculations will be disabled.
   • Data accuracy may decrease.
   • The Purchase Connector is not supported in Receipt Validation.
   • Only the validateAndLogInAppPurchase SDK method is supported.
5. Review the comparison table, if needed, by clicking 'View product comparison'.
6. If you still want to proceed, click Switch to confirm the change.
7. After switching, the Product type updates to Receipt validation, and the screen reflects the simplified configuration.
8. You’ll need to revalidate the following:
   • SDK implementation for the validateAndLog method

Traits and limitations