Businesses and schools can now buy app subscriptions by the seat
Apple Business and Apple School Manager now sell auto-renewable app subscriptions in volume, assigned through MDM.
Apps · Macfolio · 23 October 2026
Since October 22, 2026, organizations using Apple Business or Apple School Manager can buy auto-renewable app subscriptions in volume, Apple told developers. It closes a long-standing gap: volume purchasing worked for paid apps, but subscription apps usually meant expense reports or separate business deals.
How it works
- Purchase: an organization buys the seats it needs through a single In-App Purchase inside Apple Business or Apple School Manager.
- Assignment: seats are assigned and managed with the organization's existing device management tools.
- Changes: seats can be added or removed at any time.
- Requirements: the subscription must use StoreKit 2.
- Defaults: multiseat purchasing is on by default in App Store Connect. Subscriptions created before September 14, 2026 that do not use StoreKit 2, or that have Family Sharing turned on, start opted out.
Apple Business and Apple School Manager support only multiseat purchases. Developers can limit a subscription to Apple School Manager, which Apple's WWDC26 session says allows education-specific pricing.
Group purchases come later
Apple also plans consumer group purchases on the App Store, where one person buys several seats and invites others. Developers can configure and test them in a Sandbox Apple Account from October 28, 2026, and Apple says they reach the App Store this winter.
What to do
Developers should open each subscription's Purchase Options in App Store Connect, which requires the Account Holder, Admin, or App Manager role, and decide where it is sold. Read the fine print first: turning multiseat off removes the subscription from Apple Business and Apple School Manager, and removing those channels from an approved subscription cancels existing organizational subscribers at their next renewal. When both multiseat and Family Sharing are on, only the group purchaser can share with family.
IT admins should check whether the subscription tools staff already expense now appear in Apple Business.
This does not mean every subscription app is available yet; developers who use older StoreKit APIs or opted out will not appear.
Our take: this is one of the more useful App Store changes for Mac-heavy teams in a while, provided major developers keep the default on.
Caveat: availability depends on each developer's settings, and Apple has not published a list of participating subscriptions.