Hello,
I am developing a wellness app out of Pakistan with an initial regional launch, expanding globally afterward. The app features a hybrid business model that combines physical commerce, food delivery, and human service consultations. I want to ensure my payment processing strategy aligns perfectly with App Store guidelines before I build the billing infrastructure.
Our app provides three distinct offerings:
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Live Human Nutritionist Plans: Users purchase monthly, quarterly, or 6-month consulting plans. A certified, real-life human nutritionist reviews their profiles and manually drafts customized diet templates (Weight Loss, Muscle Gain, Women's Health/PCOS management).
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Fresh Cooked Meal Delivery: Users can subscribe to have macro-counted meals (rice, healthy proteins, etc.) cooked and delivered fresh to their doorstep daily based on their chosen plan.
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E-Commerce Health Store: An in-app storefront where users purchase physical shelf-stable goods like premium peanut butter, organic honey, and organic dry fruits shipped via local courier services.
My Payment Route Strategy:
• For Offerings 2 and 3 (Meals & Physical Marketplace Goods): Since these are explicitly physical goods and real-world delivery logistics, we intend to integrate third-party mobile payment gateways (Local credit/debit card processors and mobile wallets) in compliance with Guideline 3.1.5(a).
• For Offering 1 (Human Nutritionist Consulting): Under Guideline 3.1.3(d) for Person-to-Person Services, we intend to also route these through our third-party checkout since real human professionals manually evaluate and generate these programs rather than a software algorithm.
Questions for the Community & Apple Engineers:
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Does Apple allow a single unified shopping cart using a third-party gateway if a user checks out with physical goods (e.g., peanut butter) and a human service plan simultaneously? Or do we need to separate the checkouts?
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Because the app deals extensively with physical delivery and human services, is it permissible to bypass Apple In-App Purchases completely across all three tiers, or will Apple view the custom-drafted PDF diet templates as digital content under 3.1.1?
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If we decide to use Apple IAP for the Human Nutritionist subscription plans out of developer convenience, can we safely maintain our third-party gateway side-by-side inside the app exclusively for the meal deliveries and physical pantry products?
Any insights from developers who have successfully launched hybrid/physical-delivery apps would be highly appreciated!