TL;DR. Inside an App Store Connect subscription group, each subscription gets a level, with level 1 meaning the most access and higher numbers meaning less. That level order — not the price you set — is what Apple’s system uses to decide whether a plan switch is an upgrade (bills immediately, prorated refund on the old plan), a downgrade (waits until the next renewal), or a crossgrade (same level, different duration). A group holds up to 100 subscriptions but a subscriber can only be on one at a time. Required role to create or edit a group: Account Holder, Admin, App Manager, Developer, or Marketing — wider than the role set that can touch your keyword field.

If you’ve ever shipped a Basic/Plus/Pro subscription lineup and had a user land on a confusing “downgrade” prompt after picking what you thought was the pricier plan, the bug usually isn’t in your paywall UI. It’s the level order inside the subscription group in App Store Connect, and it’s easy to set once at launch and never revisit as you add tiers.

What determines whether a subscription change counts as an upgrade, downgrade, or crossgrade?

Apple’s own help page puts it plainly: arrange your subscriptions “in order from the one that offers the most (level 1) to the one that offers the least.” That level assignment — not the price — decides the transition type. Moving to a lower level number is an upgrade; moving to a higher level number is a downgrade; moving between two subscriptions at the same level (different duration, same access) is a crossgrade.

The three behave differently at checkout, too. An upgrade takes effect immediately: the subscriber is billed in full for the new plan and gets a prorated refund on the unused portion of the old one. A downgrade doesn’t switch anything right away — the current plan runs out its paid period, then renews at the lower level and price on the next billing date. A crossgrade’s timing depends on duration: if both plans are pay-up-front with the same duration, the switch is immediate; if the durations differ, it waits for the next renewal.

How many subscriptions can I put in one App Store Connect subscription group?

A single subscription group can hold up to 100 subscription products, but a subscriber can only be subscribed to one product per group at a time. That’s the mechanism Apple uses to make Basic/Plus/Pro feel like one plan with tiers instead of three separate purchases someone could stack.

That constraint is also the thing to check before you assume two offers are related: if you want a customer to be able to hold two of your products simultaneously — say, a core subscription plus an unrelated content pack — they need to live in separate subscription groups, not different levels inside the same one. Putting them in one group silently caps a subscriber at owning just one of the two.

Getting the level order wrong doesn’t just confuse the upgrade sheet — it can cost you revenue share

Apple’s proceeds structure pays 70% of the subscription price during a subscriber’s first year of paid service, rising to 85% once they cross one year. Upgrades, downgrades, and crossgrades within the same subscription group don’t reset that clock — Apple’s documentation states this explicitly. The accumulated days of paid service only stop counting if the subscription actually lapses, and even then they resume from where they left off if the subscriber comes back within 60 days.

That’s a real reason to keep tier changes inside one group rather than shipping a new, separate subscription product every time you add a plan: a customer who’s been paying for 14 months and switches from your Plus tier to your new Pro tier keeps their 85% rate, because it’s a levelled change inside the same group. Launch Pro as an unrelated standalone product instead, and that same customer’s proceeds clock resets to zero.

Who can create or edit a subscription group

The required role is Account Holder, Admin, App Manager, Developer, or Marketing, per Apple’s help page. That’s a wider set than the roles that can touch your keyword field, subtitle, or screenshots, which excludes the Developer role entirely. Subscription setup is one of the few App Store Connect metadata areas where the engineer building the paywall doesn’t need an App Manager or Marketing grant just to configure the group and assign levels — worth knowing if you’re deciding who on a small team should own it.

Same-day checklist

  • Open each subscription group you ship and confirm the level numbers actually read 1 = most access, descending — don’t assume the order you created products in matches the order you intended.
  • If two offers should be purchasable together, verify they’re in separate groups, not different levels of one group.
  • Before launching a new price tier, decide up front whether it’s a level inside an existing group (keeps the proceeds clock running) or a genuinely new group (starts a new one).