Advanced | Payments

Payment methods

Your Apple Search Ads campaign won’t run until your account includes a valid payment method. You can add your credit card on the Billing page during the campaign setup process.

If a charge to your credit card has been declined for any reason, we’ll pause your campaigns and attempt to charge the same credit card again within 48 hours of the declined transaction. You don’t need to add a new credit card to enable us to attempt a recharge. If you've added a replacement credit card to your account, we’ll automatically charge the replacement credit card within 24 hours of when the credit card information was updated. We can’t run charges manually on request. Once the transaction has been authorised, your ads will be eligible to appear in App Store search results again.

If you’re planning to run ads on the App Store in multiple countries and regions, you should notify your credit card company to ensure there won’t be any issues processing foreign transactions. Depending on where your ads run, you may see up to five different charges on your summary from five separate Apple billing entities. For more information, see the Apple Search Ads Terms of Service.

In addition, as of September 2019, European legislation may require your bank to authenticate an online credit card transaction if your credit card is issued by a bank located in the European Economic Area. If so, you’ll be redirected to your bank to authenticate and complete the transaction.

By saving your credit card information, Apple may initiate and charge the card for subsequent payments relating to your Apple Search Ads account. Such payments will be initiated and charged in accordance with the Apple Search Ads Terms of Service and the payment methods found here.

Which currencies are supported?

You can set the currency for your Apple Search Ads account to any of the following:

Australian dollar (AUD)
British pound (GBP)
Canadian dollar (CAD)
Euro (EUR)
Japanese yen (JPY)
Mexican peso (MXN)
New Zealand dollar (NZD)
Russian rouble (RUB)
US dollar (USD)

All bidding and billing activity will occur in the currency that you select.

You can only select one currency per account, and you can’t change it once it’s been set.

Which types of cards are considered valid payment methods?

Apple Search Ads accepts Visa, Mastercard (including Apple Card) and American Express.

When you use Apple Card as your payment method for Apple Search Ads, you get 3% Daily Cash back. Apple Card is currently available to qualifying applicants in the United States.

Learn more about Apple Card

PIN-less and PIN-optional Visa and Mastercard debit cards are also accepted. We don’t currently accept Maestro, Visa Plus or Visa Electron brands. Your debit card daily spending limit must be able to cover your campaign charges.

Credit cards and debit cards from the following countries are not valid forms of payment: Austria, Chile, Cuba, Ghana, Hungary, Iran, Mauritius, North Korea, Philippines and Singapore.

Other invalid forms of payment include pre-paid cards, gift cards — including those branded Visa, Mastercard and American Express — cash machine cards and digital wallets such as PayPal and Venmo.

Apple Search Ads doesn’t charge fees for credit card transactions, but credit card operators may charge you foreign transaction fees. Please contact your credit card provider to find out when foreign transaction fees may apply. Apple Search Ads will not reimburse or issue credit for charged foreign transaction fees.

How to add or change a credit card

Click your account name in the top right-hand corner of the page.
Click Settings.
Go to the Billing page.
Click Edit Card.
Enter your new credit card information, and save it.

You can only have one active credit card at a time for your account. You can change your credit card information a maximum of three times within a 24-hour period.

How the billing cycle works

Apple Search Ads campaign charges will occur every US$500 spent, or every seven days, whichever comes first. When you reach the billing threshold, an email notification will be sent to the email address you specified when you set up your credit card. You can also view and download your invoices on the Billing page.

Campaigns set up for multiple countries and regions may appear on more than one invoice or as more than one line item on an invoice, depending on the country or region where the ads run and the corresponding Apple billing entity. For example, a campaign that includes France and Japan will appear on invoices from Apple Distribution International Ltd. and iTunes K.K. Advertisers in Russia should only receive invoices from Apple Distribution International Ltd.

You may want to generate custom reports that break down campaigns by country or region and billing entity to compare with your invoices. When creating custom reports for this purpose, set the time zone to UTC to match your invoice, and use the following:

Dimensions: Campaign ID, Campaign Name, Country or Region, Budget Order Number and Billing Entity
Metrics: Spend and Taps

How paused campaigns affect billing

Pausing campaigns doesn’t delete your account or credit card information. The payment information you’ve added to your account will be kept secure while your campaigns are paused, and will not be charged until your campaigns have been reactivated.

How to review your transaction history

If you pay by credit card, you can sign in to your account and review transaction details at any time. Here’s how:

Click your account name in the top right-hand corner of the page.
Click Settings.
Go to the Billing page.
Go to the Invoices section of the page.
Click the specific invoice you’d like to see.

A list of transactions will appear, identifying the campaign and campaign ID the transactions occurred under, along with the number of taps received and the amount billed to your account.