Adding a first paid plan to an already-approved free app: does it need review, and is App Pricing migration required?

Shopify App Store
,
1

Our app is published with Limited Visibility and was approved as a
free app. It is still on Manual pricing (legacy), with a single
public plan called “free” and no private plans.

We need to launch a $69/month Starter plan with a 7-day free trial,
plus a private Founding Member plan. Our app code is already built
against Shopify App Pricing, and our staging app uses it.

Five questions:

  1. Do we need to complete the “Update to App Pricing” migration
    before we can offer a paid plan, or can a paid plan be added
    under Manual pricing (legacy)?

  2. Does introducing the first paid plan on an app that was
    approved as free trigger a review? Full re-review, or a
    billing-only review?

  3. If it does, roughly how long does that take in the current
    queue?

  4. During any such review, can merchants still install via direct
    link, and can we switch the listing to Fully Visible?

  5. Is renaming the app and its App Store URL handled separately
    from the billing change, or should both go in one update?

Any pointers to the right documentation would also help. Thank you.

2

Hey @Sophia_Seo, Since your app is using a free plan, I’m assuming that you’re not actually manually billing anyone.

In this case, I would make sure that your app pricing includes a free plan, so new merchants who find you can continue to use your free plan. And then you can add that paid plan alongside it.

Introducing a paid plan, changing your visibility, or your name do not automatically trigger a review, so you are safe to do that.

However, make sure that all of these changes still comply with the App Store requirements because we do regular app quality checks to ensure all apps remain compliant.