Google Play Revenue Tracking

Google Play revenue tracking sends your Android app's purchase events to Superwall, including subscription renewals, one-time purchases, and refunds. Superwall reads purchase details through a service account in your Google Cloud project and receives events through Google Play's real-time developer notifications.

Requirements

• An Android app in Superwall that belongs to a project. If the new dashboard says the app isn't in a project, open Integrations and click Convert to project, then click Convert to Project on the page that opens.
• An Owner, Admin, or User (Legacy) role in Superwall. Editors, Readers, and Analysts can't save the setup. If your project access is Restricted, you also need the Admin project role for the app's project. See Access Controls.
• A Google Cloud project where you can enable APIs and create service accounts.
• The account owner role or the Admin (all permissions) permission in Play Console, which you need to invite users.

Step 1: Enable the Google Cloud APIs

Select the Google Cloud project you'll use to connect your Android app to Superwall. Then open each API's page and click Enable:

• Google Play Android Developer API

  

• Cloud Pub/Sub API

  

An enabled API shows API Enabled and a Manage button on its page.

Step 2: Create a service account and key

1. 1

   Create the service account

   Open Service Accounts in Google Cloud, in the same project you used in step 1, and click Create service account. Enter any name and ID, then click Create and continue.

   
2. 2

   Grant the Pub/Sub Admin role

   Under Permissions, add the Pub/Sub Admin role and click Continue. Skip Principals with access and click Done.

   Superwall uses this role to create the notification topic, allow Google Play to publish to it, and add its own subscription to it.

   
3. 3

   Download a JSON key

   Click the new service account and open its Keys tab.

   

   Click Add key > Create new key, select JSON, and click Create. Google Cloud downloads the key file. You upload it to Superwall in step 4.

   If Google Cloud says an organization policy blocks key creation, ask an organization policy administrator to exempt the project. Organizations created on or after May 3, 2024 block key creation by default with the iam.disableServiceAccountKeyCreation constraint.

   

Step 3: Invite the service account in Play Console

1. 1

   Copy the service account email

   In Google Cloud, copy the service account's email address from its Details tab. The key file also contains it as client_email.

   
2. 2

   Invite the service account

   In Play Console, open Users and permissions and click Invite new users. Paste the email address.

3. 3

   Grant permissions

   On the Account permissions tab, turn on:

   • View app information and download bulk reports (read-only)
   • View financial data, orders, and cancellation survey responses
   • Manage orders and subscriptions

   Click Invite user.

   

Step 4: Connect Google Play in Superwall

1. 1

   Open Revenue tracking

   In the new dashboard, click Integrations in the sidebar. Under Revenue, click Google Play. This opens the Revenue tracking page.

   
2. 2

   Select Google Play

   Click Google Play to make it your app's revenue provider. The Google Play setup card appears below.

   The revenue provider sets which source Superwall's charts use for revenue. If you send revenue through RevenueCat, set up RevenueCat instead.

3. 3

   Add the package name and key

   In Package name, enter your app's application ID from Play Console, such as com.example.app. It's listed under your app's name in Play Console. Superwall fills this in when your app's settings already include it.

   

   Click Choose key file and select the JSON key from step 2.

   
4. 4

   Save and connect

   Click Save and connect. Superwall checks the key with Google before it stores anything. If a check fails, Superwall shows Nothing was saved with the reason, and nothing is stored. See Troubleshooting.

   When the save succeeds, Superwall shows Google Play connected, and the key field reads Using the stored key for your service account's email.

   

   Did you receive an error?

To run the checks without saving anything, click Check without saving.

When none of the checks fail, Superwall saves the key and sets up notification delivery in your Google Cloud project:

1. If a topic in the project already lets Google Play publish to it, Superwall uses that topic. Otherwise, Superwall creates a topic named Play-Store-Notifications and grants google-play-developer-notifications@system.gserviceaccount.com the Pub/Sub Publisher role on it.
2. Superwall adds a push subscription to the topic. Its name starts with Superwall-, and it delivers each notification to Superwall.

After you save, a Notification delivery card appears below the setup card. It lists the topics in your Google Cloud project by their short names, such as Play-Store-Notifications, with these labels:

If more than one topic is marked Google Play can publish, make sure the topic marked In use is the one you enter in Play Console. To switch, click Use this topic next to the right one. Save and connect picks the topic again each time you save, so check the topic marked In use after every save.

Step 5: Turn on real-time developer notifications

1. 1

   Open Monetization setup

   In Play Console, select your app and go to Monetize with Play > Monetization setup.

2. 2

   Enable real-time notifications

   Check Enable real-time notifications.

   
3. 3

   Enter the full topic name

   In Topic name, enter the full name of the topic marked In use in Superwall:

   projects/<your-project-id>/topics/Play-Store-Notifications

   Replace <your-project-id> with your Google Cloud project ID. It's the project_id value in your key file, and the part of your service account's email between @ and .iam.gserviceaccount.com. If Superwall used an existing topic, replace Play-Store-Notifications with that topic's name. The short name on its own doesn't work.

4. 4

   Choose notification content

   Under Notification content, select Subscriptions, voided purchases, and all one-time products. Superwall processes all three. The default, Subscriptions and voided purchases only, leaves out one-time purchases.

5. 5

   Test and save

   Click Send test notification, then click Save changes.

   

Verify it's working

Reload the Revenue tracking page in Superwall. Under Recent activity, Notifications received counts the notifications delivered to Superwall in the last 30 days, including test notifications from Play Console.

If Recent activity still says no Google Play notifications have arrived, check that Topic name in Play Console matches the topic marked In use.

Troubleshooting

To see which check fails, click Check without saving. It runs the checks in order and stops at the first one that fails, and the checks after it are grayed out. It doesn't save anything. Fix the failing check, then click Save and connect. After a failed save, choose your key file again and check Package name first.

If no topic is marked In use after you save, Superwall couldn't set up notification delivery. Grant the service account the Pub/Sub Admin role, then reload the Revenue tracking page. If a topic is marked Google Play can publish, click Use this topic next to it or click Save and connect again. Otherwise, click Create the topic for me under Notification delivery. If your organization restricts sharing by domain, add an exception for google-play-developer-notifications@system.gserviceaccount.com.

Update or disconnect

• To change the package name, edit Package name and click Save and connect. Superwall re-checks the stored key, so you don't need to upload it again.
• To replace the key, click Replace key file, choose the new file, and click Save and connect.
• To move notifications to another topic, click Use this topic next to it under Notification delivery, then update Topic name in Play Console to match. Pick a topic marked Google Play can publish. Saving the setup again can move the subscription back, so check In use after each save.
• Disconnect Google Play takes effect immediately, without a confirmation step. It removes the stored key and settings, and Superwall stops creating revenue events from the app's Google Play notifications. The topic and the Superwall- subscription stay in your Google Cloud project, and the subscription keeps delivering notifications to Superwall until you delete it.

How Google Cloud, Play Console, and Superwall connect

Your Google Cloud project doesn't know about your app on its own. It holds the two APIs, the service account, and the Pub/Sub topic. Play Console connects them to your app in two places:

• Inviting the service account in step 3 gives it access to your apps in Play Console. Google checks that access each time Superwall looks up a purchase.
• Entering the topic name in step 5 tells Google Play where to send your app's notifications.

When someone makes a purchase in your app:

1. Google Play publishes a notification to your topic.
2. Pub/Sub forwards it to Superwall through the Superwall- subscription.
3. Superwall uses your service account key to look up the purchase details from Google Play.

Superwall only creates revenue events from notifications for the package name you entered in step 4.