Partial refunds for IAPs & subscriptions now available on Google Play

We may earn a commission for purchases made using our links.

The Google Play Developer Console has quietly been getting new features in the past few weeks. Recently, we saw that Google added the ability for developers to restrict their apps from being installed on Android Oreo (Go Edition) devices. Now, it seems that Google is also adding the ability for developers to issue partial refunds for in-app purchases and subscriptions.

Earlier today while responding to feedback on the XDA Navigation Gestures app, I noticed a new message in the Play Console introducing me to partial refunds. I couldn’t find any information about this online so I’m not exactly sure when this feature went live, but a few developers I’ve talked to said they also recently noticed this so I’m certain it’s new.

In any case, if you go to the Order Management tab and select any order to refund you’ll notice a new “partial refund” toggle up top.

If you toggle that, you can then specify a pre-tax percentage to refund the user. The Google Play Console will automatically calculate the post-tax amount to be refunded.

You can go back and issue more partial refunds, but your partial refund obviously can’t exceed the total refundable amount. Partial refunds will be a great way of dealing with customers who you want to placate but you believe they should have properly read the app description or tested the app before fully committing (ie. buyer’s remorse.) There are a few limitations you need to be aware of, though:

Partial refunds don’t support paid apps.

Partial refunds are only available for purchases made starting March 2018.

Some payment methods don’t accept partial refunds.

Subscribe with Google orders can’t be partially refunded.

If you would like to review the full documentation for partial refunds, you can do so here. I’ve copied the most relevant bits below.