Subscription cost [subscription_cost]

Use the subscription cost [subscription_cost] attribute to include the details for the following: 

• A monthly or annual payment plan that bundles a communications service contract with your wireless product (mobile phone or tablet).
• A weekly, monthly, or annual payment plan for physical goods products.

In this article

• When to use
• Physical Goods
• Format
• Minimum requirements
• Best practices for mobile products
• Examples

When to use

Telecommunications

 Optional for each product

• Africa: South Africa
• Asia-Pacific: Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand
• Europe: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom
• Middle East: Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates
• North America: Canada

This attribute is supported for mobile products with the following Google Product category:

• Watches (ID: 201)
• Mobile Phone (ID: 267)
• Tablet Computers. (ID: 4745)
• Mobile Phone Prepaid Cards & SIM Cards (ID: 6030)
• GPS Tracking Devices (ID: 6544)

This attribute uses 3 sub-attributes:

• Period [period] (Required): The duration of a single subscription period. Either month [month] or year [year].
• Period length [period_length] (Required): Integer, the number of subscription periods (months or years) that the buyer must pay. Must be greater than 0.
• Amount [amount] (Required): ISO 4217, the amount the buyer must pay per period. When displaying this amount, we may round up to the nearest whole unit of local currency to save space. The provided value must still exactly match the amount as shown on your site.

Format the value by submitting period [period], period length [period_length], and amount [amount] separated with colons ( : ). Don’t use quotation marks.

Physical goods

 Required for each subscription-based product

For Physical Goods Subscriptions, this attribute is only available for the following marketing methods:

• Shopping ads
   
  Note: Physical Goods Subscriptions will only display on Google Search.

For Physical Goods Subscriptions, this attribute is only available in certain countries:

• North America: United States

This attribute is only supported for Physical Goods Subscriptions under the following Google Product category:

• Personal Care (ID: 2915)
• Health Care (excluding prescription drugs) (ID: 491)
• Home & Garden (ID: 536)
• Pet Supplies (ID: 2)
• Toys (ID: 1253)
• Prepared Foods (ID: 5814)
• Apparel & Accessories (ID: 166)
• Coffee (ID: 1868)

This attribute uses 3 sub-attributes:

• Period [period] (Required): The duration of a single subscription period. Week [week], month [month], or year [year].
• Period length [period_length] (Required): Integer, the number of subscription periods (weeks, months, or years) that the buyer must pay. Must be greater than 0.
• Amount [amount] (Required): ISO 4217, the amount the buyer must pay per period. This should be the total, non-discounted periodic payment, including any additional required non-governmental fees. When displaying this amount, we may round up to the nearest whole unit of local currency to save space. The provided value must still exactly match the amount as shown on your site.

Format the value by submitting period [period], period length [period_length], and amount [amount] separated with colons ( : ). Don’t use quotation marks.

Format

Follow these formatting guidelines to make sure Google understands the data you're submitting.

Learn when and how to submit product data in English

To format your data for Content API, see the Content API for Shopping resource.

Minimum requirements

These are the requirements you'll need to meet to show your product. If you don't follow these requirements, we'll disapprove your product and let you know in your Merchant Center account.

For all products:

• Don't use the subscription cost attribute for software subscriptions. Software subscriptions must be prepaid, and submitted using the yearly prepaid cost as the price [price] attribute.
• Use in approved countries only. Use of the subscription cost attribute in unapproved countries will result in disapprovals.
• Use for approved product categories only. Use of the subscription cost attribute for other categories of products will result in disapprovals.
• If the subscription cost for your product increases after a certain period of time then you must use the highest payment in the amount [amount] sub-attribute. For example, if the subscription payment increases from 25 USD to 35 USD after 3 months then specify 35 USD.

For mobile products:

• Include the total amount due at checkout in the price [price] attribute.
• When used in combination with the installment [installment] attribute, also include the total amount due at checkout in the downpayment [downpayment] sub-attribute of the installment [installment] attribute.
• Match the communications payment plan that you display on your landing page. You can also display other communication options on your landing page, but the plan that you submit must be straightforward to find on the landing page.
• Don’t require that users have a loyalty card to choose the service plan that you submit.

For physical goods:

• Specify the subscription offer terms of the subscription on your landing page per policy requirements.
• Submit the subscription cost as the total, non-discounted periodic payment, including any additional required non-governmental fees.
• The price [price] attribute must be present and provided as 0. The price value will be ignored and not shown. The [sale_price] attribute, if provided, will also be ignored and not shown.
• Landing pages should clearly display a visible subscription price with currency and duration of a single subscription period. The subscription price and currency on the landing page should match the subscription cost amount [amount] field in your product data and duration of a single subscription period should match the subscription cost period [period] field. If there are multiple variants of the product or subscription options displayed on the landing page, they should be clearly separated, each displaying their own subscription price and subscription period. If there are promotional subscription periods on the landing page, they should be clearly separated from the non-discounted subscription price.

Best practices for mobile products

These best practices can help you go beyond the basic requirements to optimize your product data for performance.

• Use the same currency for subscription cost [subscription_cost], installment [installment], and price [price].
• If the product is also paid for in monthly installments, use the same number of months for the subscription cost [subscription_cost] as for the installments.
• If your product has installment payments, submit the same number of months for the subscription cost [subscription_cost] attribute as for the installment [installment] attribute. If the number of months is different and we need to combine your installment and subscription cost due to space constraints, then we use the highest of the two values. For example, if your installment plan is 12 months, but your subscription service contract is 24, then we will use 24 months.

Examples