Solve billing issues

If the card associated with your Apple Search Ads account has
been declined

If a charge to your credit or debit card is declined for any reason, Apple Search Ads will pause your ads and attempt to charge the same card again within 48 hours of the declined transaction. Your ads won’t run until issues with your card are resolved.

If you add a replacement credit or debit card to your account, we’ll charge the replacement card within 24 hours from the time the credit card information is updated. Note that we can’t manually run charges upon request.

Once the transaction is authorized, your ads will become eligible to appear on the App Store again.

If you need to update your credit or debit card

  1. Click your account name at the top right of the page.
  2. Click Settings.
  3. Go to the Billing page.
  4. Click Edit Card.
  5. Enter your new credit or debit card information, and save it.

Your updated card can be charged within 24 hours, and your ads may be eligible to appear on the App Store.

Note that you may have only one active credit or debit card at a time for your account.

When you’re updating your payment method, you have the option to add a billing contact for the credit or debit card. This is a contact who may need to receive billing summaries such as invoices, card expiration notices, declined charge notifications, and more.

If you experience issues when adding a credit or debit card

First, make sure you’re using a valid payment method and that the payment information you entered is correct. If it is, try the following:

  • Clear your web browser’s cache, cookies, and history.
  • Disable any extensions or pop-up blockers which may be preventing the authentication window from displaying.
  • Try authenticating using a different method, such as a one-time code delivered by SMS, email or voice call, or physical security key.
  • Try adding your card in a private browsing window.
  • Try adding your card using a different device and browser.

Note that Apple Search Ads isn’t currently able to accept Visa Plus, credit or debit cards issued by a bank in India, or pre-paid cards, gift cards — including those branded Visa, Mastercard, and American Express — ATM cards, or digital wallets such as PayPal and Venmo.

Additional restrictions originating from your card issuer may also prevent the registration of your card. Work with your card issuer directly to ensure you’re able to accept charge attempts from Apple Search Ads.

If your card requires additional steps to register online payments

Your bank may require you to authenticate your payment card during the registration process. If so, you’ll be redirected to your bank to authenticate and complete the transaction. If you can't complete the authentication instructions provided by your card issuer, try authenticating using one of the alternative methods offered by your card issuer, such as a one-time codes delivered by SMS, email or voice call, or physical security key. If you continue to experience issues, contact your card issuer for assistance.

If you receive a charge for $1 (U.S.)

A $0 or $1 (U.S.) charge on your bill indicates a temporary authorization request was sent to your card issuer to ensure that your card is valid. The charge should be removed from your account automatically by your bank, usually within 14 days. Apple Search Ads can’t remove it. Contact your card issuer if a temporary authorization isn’t removed.

If you receive install charges more than 30
days later

Downloads of your app onto user devices are counted within a 30-day conversion window. The window starts when a user engages with your ad and ends when the user installs (downloads) your app, within a 30-day period. It may take up to 10 days for all charges to be processed and reflected in your dashboard.

If you receive multiple charges from different
Apple entities

Charges are usually processed every $500 (U.S.) or seven days, according to each legal Apple entity associated with where your ads appeared.

If, for example, you’re based in Australia but run a campaign in the U.S. and UK, multiple charges will be itemized on your billing summary to account for every country and region where your ads appeared. Depending on where your ads run, you may see up to a total of five separate charges at one time, but they shouldn't exceed your $500 (U.S.) threshold. Advertisers in Russia should receive invoices from Apple Distribution International Ltd. only.

Note that if you plan to run ads on the App Store in multiple countries and regions, you should notify your credit card company to ensure that there will not be any issues processing foreign transactions.

If you paused your campaigns but see CPI charges on your invoice

This can happen if, at any point, you were using both Apple Search Ads Advanced and Basic. If you haven’t paused your Apple Search Ads Basic app promotion, it could still be running and accruing cost-per-install (CPI) charges — even if all of your Apple Search Ads Advanced campaigns are paused.

To check the status of an Apple Search Ads Basic app promotion:

  1. Sign in to your Apple Search Ads account.
  2. If you’re on the Apple Search Ads Advanced Campaigns dashboard, go to the upper-left corner where you see Advanced.
  3. Click the down arrow next to Advanced to open the menu.
  4. Choose Basic from the menu.
  5. On the Apple Search Ads Basic dashboard, find the status menu for your app promotion. If the status menu shows that your app promotion is running, this means your account is still accruing charges.
  6. To change the status of your app promotion, click the Status menu to see your options. Choosing Pause will stop your app promotion from appearing on the App Store and accruing further charges.

Once you pause a Basic app promotion, it will no longer run. However, you may still be billed for residual spend. Because Apple Search Ads installs are attributed within a 30-day attribution window, any charges appearing on your invoice after an app promotion is paused would be the result of residual spend that required additional time to process.

If you think you’ve found a
billing error

If you suspect a billing error in your account, please contact the Apple Search Ads team.