If you have ever configured in-app purchases or subscriptions in App Store Connect, you know it is one of the most tedious parts of app development. The web interface was clearly designed for the simplest case — a single product, one price tier, one language — and everything beyond that becomes an exercise in patience.
When you have a subscription app with multiple tiers, annual and monthly pricing, promotional offers, introductory pricing across 175 storefronts, and localized display names in 20 languages, App Store Connect's browser interface becomes genuinely painful to work with. If you manage beta builds alongside your monetization, you will also want to see how Forge handles TestFlight management.
Forge was built to make this faster. Here is how.
Why IAP Management in the Browser Hurts
Let's start with what makes App Store Connect's IAP management so frustrating.
The Pricing Problem
Apple offers around 900 price points across 175 storefronts. When you create an in-app purchase, you select a base price and Apple auto-generates prices for every other country. Sounds simple — until you realize the auto-generated prices are not always what you want.
Maybe you want $4.99 in the US but a round number like 4.99 EUR in Europe rather than the auto-calculated 4.79 EUR. In App Store Connect, adjusting individual storefront prices means scrolling through a massive list of countries, clicking each one, selecting a different price point, and saving. For one product. Now imagine doing this for six subscription tiers.
The Localization Problem
Every in-app purchase needs a display name and description that users see in the purchase sheet. If your app supports 20 languages, you need to enter 20 display names and 20 descriptions per product.
In App Store Connect, this means: click into the product, scroll to the Localizations section, click "Add Localization," select a language, enter the name and description, save, and repeat. For each language. For each product.
If you have 8 products and 20 languages, that is 160 localization entries. Each one requires multiple clicks and a page interaction in the browser. This is not a theoretical complaint — developers routinely spend entire afternoons on this.
The Organization Problem
As your monetization strategy evolves, your IAP list grows. You might have legacy products that are no longer for sale but still need to be accessible for existing subscribers. You have subscription groups with different products in each. You have consumable and non-consumable products alongside subscriptions.
App Store Connect's web interface displays all of this in a flat list with minimal filtering. Finding the specific product you need to edit means scrolling and scanning. There is no quick search, no grouping by status, no visual hierarchy beyond "Active" and "Missing Metadata."
How Forge Makes IAP Management Practical
Forge approaches in-app purchase management as a first-class feature rather than an afterthought. The In-App Purchases module is designed to handle the complexity that real apps actually have.
Visual Product Overview
When you open In-App Purchases in Forge, you see all your products in a structured list with key information visible immediately: product ID, reference name, type (consumable, non-consumable, auto-renewable), status, and price. No clicking into each product just to see basic details.
Products are organized by type and subscription group, so you can quickly find what you are looking for. A search field lets you filter by name or product ID instantly.
Streamlined Pricing
Setting prices in Forge works the way you would expect. You select your base price point and see the auto-calculated prices across all storefronts. If you want to customize specific markets, you can do it inline without navigating to a separate page.
The key difference is speed: adjusting prices across multiple storefronts is a table-editing task, not a series of page loads and modal dialogs.
Efficient Localization
Localization in Forge is handled through a clean, table-style interface. You see all languages side by side with display names and descriptions in a grid. You can tab between fields, paste translated text, and move to the next language without any page navigation.
For developers who prepare their localizations in a spreadsheet — and most do — this maps much more closely to how you actually work. You are moving data from a table into a table, not from a table into a series of web forms.
Subscription Group Management
Subscription groups have their own dedicated view in Forge. You can see all groups, the products within each group, their pricing, and their status in a single screen. Moving products between groups, adjusting their display order (which affects the upgrade/downgrade path), and managing introductory and promotional offers is all accessible without deep navigation.
Promotional and Introductory Offers
Managing subscription offers in App Store Connect is particularly tedious. Introductory offers (free trials, pay-as-you-go, pay-up-front) and promotional offers (offer codes, subscription offers) each have their own configuration screens buried within the subscription product detail page.
In Forge, offers are visible as part of the product detail view. You can see at a glance which products have active offers, what the offer terms are, and when they expire. Creating a new offer or modifying an existing one is a direct interaction, not a multi-page journey.
Non-Renewing Subscriptions
If your app uses non-renewing subscriptions — common in magazine apps, season-based content, and time-limited access products — you know these are managed separately from auto-renewable subscriptions in App Store Connect. The workflow is different, the configuration options are different, and the web interface makes you navigate to an entirely different section.
Forge treats non-renewing subscriptions as a proper product type with their own section and appropriate configuration options, rather than making you hunt for them in the IAP list.
A Practical Example
Let's say you are launching a new subscription tier — a "Pro Annual" plan at $49.99/year — across your app that supports 15 languages.
In App Store Connect (browser):
- Navigate to In-App Purchases > Manage (2 page loads)
- Click "+" to create a new subscription (1 page load)
- Select your subscription group (1 interaction)
- Enter the reference name, product ID, and pricing (5-6 form fields)
- Save and navigate to the product detail (1 page load)
- Add localizations one by one: click "Add," select language, enter display name and description, save. Repeat 15 times. (15 page interactions, each taking 10-15 seconds)
- Verify pricing across storefronts by scrolling the price list (tedious scrolling)
- Set up introductory offer if applicable (another page, more form fields)
- Total time: 15-25 minutes
In Forge:
- Open In-App Purchases, click "Create" (instant)
- Fill in product details, select pricing (30 seconds)
- Add all 15 localizations in the table view (5 minutes of actual typing)
- Configure introductory offer in the same view (30 seconds)
- Total time: 6-8 minutes, all of it productive work
The difference is not that Forge skips steps — Apple requires the same information regardless of how you submit it. The difference is that Forge eliminates the waiting, the navigation, and the redundant clicking.
Working with StoreKit 2 and Server Notifications
Modern apps using StoreKit 2 still need products configured in App Store Connect, and the configuration requirements have only gotten more complex with subscription offer codes, Family Sharing settings, and server-to-server notification URLs.
Forge keeps all these configuration options accessible in logical locations within each product's detail view, so you do not have to remember which sub-page of App Store Connect holds the setting you need to change.
Start Managing IAPs Without the Headaches
If you are tired of spending your afternoons clicking through App Store Connect's IAP pages, Forge is built for you.
Download Forge, add your API key, and see your entire in-app purchase catalog in a clean, fast, native interface. Every product, every subscription group, every localization — all of it accessible in seconds instead of minutes.
Your monetization strategy is complicated enough. The tool you use to manage it should not make it harder. Read more about why developers are switching from App Store Connect to a native macOS alternative.