Starting the week of June 7, 2021, you can create an Account Group in Play Console to help us understand the Developer Accounts that you’re associated with.
Understanding Account Groups
Account Groups help us understand which Developer Accounts you’re associated with. Providing this information in Play Console helps us make sure that you’re eligible for the 15% service fee for the first $1M (USD) of earnings and to provide future benefits.
Glossary
These are some of the terms you’ll encounter when setting up your Account Group. Any other capitalized terms in this article are defined in the Developer Distribution Agreement (“DDA”) if they are not defined below.
- Account Group: The account in Play Console to which all Your Associated Developer Accounts (ADAs) belong.
- Affiliate: Any entity that, directly or indirectly, Controls You, is Controlled by You, or is under another entity’s common Control with You.
- Associated Developer Accounts (ADAs):
- All Developer Accounts that You own;
- Any Developer Account owned by Your Subsidiary that publishes any Product that uses the same or similar Brand Features as Your Brand Features; and
- If the entity that Controls both You and Your Affiliates is not a Developer on Play Console:
- Any Developer Account owned by Your Affiliates that publishes any Product that uses the same or similar Brand Features as Your Brand Features. (Note: these Developer Accounts will be considered either Your ADAs or Your Affiliate’s ADAs, but not both.)
- Control: Owning 50% or more of the voting rights or ownership interests in the legal entity.
- Primary Developer Account: The ADA that’s designated as the administrator of the Account Group.
- Primary Developer Account Holder: The developer who registered the Primary Developer Account in Play Console.
- Subsidiary: The legal entity(ies) that You Control.
Process overview: creating an Account Group
Starting the week of June 7, 2021, you can go to the new Associated developer accounts page in Play Console and create an Account Group using the full legal name of your organization (for example, Google LLC). After you’ve created an Account Group, you’ll be able to add other Play Console Developer Accounts to let us know that you’re associated with them.
The Developer Account that you use to create the Account Group will become the Primary Developer Account for the Account Group. This means that anyone with admin access to the Primary Developer Account will be able to manage the Account Group.
Access to each individual Developer Account is still managed by the admins of the respective Developer Account. No one, including the Primary Developer Account of the group, gets any access to financial data, the ability to publish apps or updates on other accounts on the group, or similar permissions, unless the admins of the individual Developer Accounts explicitly add or adjust the account users or permissions.
Each Developer Account registered with your ADAs must consent to belonging to your Account Group, and authorize the Primary Developer Account Holder to act on their behalf. Your Account Group will not be complete until all of your ADAs consent to belonging to it.
The Primary Developer Account Holder will be authorized to:
- manage your ADAs and/or your Account Group including adding, removing, and viewing the relevant ADAs;
- enroll, on behalf of all the ADAs in your Account Group, in the 15% service fee tier and represent them in any related matters; and
- view the contact email addresses of all the ADAs in your Account Group after they have consented to belonging to your Account Group.
Your Account Group name and the contact email address of the Primary Developer Account will be visible to any other Developer Accounts you add to the Account Group. Your Account Group won’t be shown to users on Google Play.
Your Account Group should include all of the Developer Accounts that qualify as your ADAs. The Primary Developer Account Holder is responsible for keeping the status of the Account Group up to date.
Before you start
Here are some important things to know before you start creating and managing Account Groups:
- Creating an Account Group is required to enroll in the 15% service fee tier.
- This feature is only available to developers who have a payments profile. If you don’t have a payments profile, you won’t be able to access the Associated Developer Accounts page.
- Many developers only own a single Developer Account, in which case they will not have ADAs. If you only own a single Developer Account, you will still need to create an Account Group for the single account you own.
- A Developer Account can only be in one Account Group at a time. A Developer Account that's already in an Account Group can move from one Account Group to another by first leaving its current account group and then creating or joining another Account Group.
Create your Account Group
You can create and set up your Account Group on the Associated developer accounts page in Play Console.
To create a Developer Account Group:
- Open Play Console and go to the Associated developer accounts page.
- Click Create account group.
- Enter your account group name. You should use the full, legal name of your business or organization. For example, Google LLC. If your account is for personal use, use your developer name.
- Click Create account group.
To finish setting up your account group, you must tell us about any other Developer Accounts you're associated with.
After creating your group, tell us about the Developer Accounts you’re associated with. This involves the Primary Developer Account adding ADAs to your account group (if you have additional ADAs as defined in the "Associated Developer Accounts" definition in the glossary).
- Open Play Console and go to the Associated developer accounts page.
- Under the message "Add Developer Accounts to your account group to let us know that you're associated with them," click Start.
- In the "Developer accounts owned by your legal entity" section, select Yes to declare all Developer Accounts that you own. Select No if you do not own any other Developer Accounts.
- If you selected Yes in the previous step, add the ADAs using their developer account ID, or the package name of one of their apps.
- Tip: You can find developer account IDs listed on the Account details page in Play Console. You can find package names on the All apps page in Play Console, directly underneath the app's name.
- In the "Developer accounts with similar brand features" section, select Yes if there are any other Associated Developer Accounts that publish apps that use the same or similar brand features (as defined in the "Associated Developer Accounts" definition in the glossary) to apps in your Developer Account. Otherwise, select No.
- If you selected Yes in the previous step, add those accounts using their developer account ID, or the package name of one of their apps.
- Click Save.
After you save, admins of the Developer Accounts you added will receive a Play Console Inbox message asking them to accept or reject your request. You'll receive a Play Console Inbox message when they accept or reject your request. If they accept, they'll be added to your Account Group. You can see the status of pending requests in the "Requests you've sent" section on the Associated developer accounts page at any time.
Manage your Account Group
When you've finished setting up your group, you can add more accounts, remove accounts, or rename it if necessary. Only admins of the Primary Developer Account can manage the Account Group.
To add more ADAs to your Account Group:
- Open Play Console and go to the Associated developer accounts page.
- Click Manage and select Manage account group from the list.
- In the "Developer accounts owned by your legal entity" section, select Yes to declare all Developer Accounts that you own. Select No if you do not own any other Developer Accounts.
- If you selected Yes in the previous step, add the ADAs using their developer ID, or the package name of one of their apps.
- Tip: You can find developer IDs listed on the Account details page in Play Console. You can find package names on the All apps page in Play Console, directly underneath the app's name.
- In the "Developer accounts with similar brand features" section, select Yes if there are any other Developer Accounts that publish apps that use the same or similar brand features (as defined in the "Associated Developer Accounts" definition in the glossary) to apps in your Developer Account. Otherwise, select No.
- If you selected Yes in the previous step, add those accounts using their developer ID, or the package name of one of their apps.
- Click Save.
After you save, admins of the Developer Accounts you added will receive a Play Console Inbox message asking them to accept or reject your request. You'll receive a Play Console Inbox message when they accept or reject your request. If they accept, they'll be added to your Account Group. You can see the status of pending requests in the "Requests you've sent" section on the Associated developer accounts page at any time.
After creating your Account Group, you can remove ADAs at a later date if necessary.
To remove an ADA from your Account Group:
- Open Play Console and go to the Associated developer accounts page.
- Click Manage and select Manage account group from the list.
- Find the ADA you want to remove in the list under, "Developer accounts in your group" (followed by your Account Group name).
- Next to the ADA you want to remove, click Remove.
- Click Save.
After you save, admins of the Developer Accounts you removed will receive a Play Console Inbox message notifying them that their account has been removed from your Account Group.
To rename your Account Group:
- Open Play Console and go to the Associated developer accounts page.
- Click Manage and select Rename account group from the list.
- Enter the new Account Group name and click Save.
Before deleting your Account Group, you should understand that:
- All Developer Accounts will be removed from the Account Group. They'll then be able to create their own Account Group, or join another existing Account Group.
- All Developer Accounts will no longer be enrolled in any Google Play developer programs and services the account group has joined, such as the 15% service fee.
To delete your Account Group:
- Open Play Console and go to the Associated developer accounts page.
- Click Manage and select Delete account group from the list.
- Review the consequences of deleting your Account Group, and click Delete account group to proceed. All Developer Accounts will be notified that they are no longer a part of the Account Group.
Manage your Account Group requests
You can view and manage incoming and outgoing Account Group requests on the Associated developer accounts page.
View and cancel sent requestsTo view requests that you've sent:
- Open Play Console and go to the Associated developer accounts page.
- View sent requests in the "Requests you've sent" section.
To cancel a pending request, click Cancel request. You'll need to send the request again if you want this ADA to join at a later date.
Before accepting a request to leave your Account Group, understand that:
- Their Developer Account will no longer be in an Account Group. They'll be able to create their own account group, or join another existing account group.
- They'll no longer be enrolled in any Google Play developer programs or services your Account Group has joined, such as the 15% service fee.
- For the 15% service fee, that account’s year-to-date earnings will be included in both your Account Group, as well as any future Account Groups they join, for the purpose of calculating the 15% service fee for this year. See these FAQs for more information.
To view requests to leave your Account Group:
- Open Play Console and go to the Associated developer accounts page.
- Select the Requests tab.
- Developer accounts that have requested to leave your Account Group are listed under "Requests to leave account group." Click Review request for more details, and to accept or reject the request.
- Click Don't remove to reject the request to leave, or Remove from account group to accept it. You can click Cancel to take no action.
Make Primary Developer Account changes
If necessary, you can make changes to the Account Group's Primary Developer Account. If you're not the Primary Developer Account Holder, the Primary Developer Account Holder can send you a request to become the Primary Developer Account.
You can request another Developer Account to become the Primary Developer Account for your Account Group. You'll still be the Primary Developer Account Holder until they accept the request.
To accept a request to become the Primary Developer Account Holder:
- The person who wants to be the new Primary Developer Account Holder will be presented with any terms the current Primary Developer Account Holder has accepted on behalf of the Account Group, such as the 15% service fee Terms of Service; and
- they must accept these terms to become the Primary Developer Account Holder.
If they accept the request:
- You'll no longer have permission to manage the Account Group.
- Your Developer Account will still be a member of the Account Group.
- The new Primary Developer Account will have permission to manage the Account Group. This includes being able to add or remove Developer Accounts, and enroll in future Google Play developer programs and services on behalf of the Account Group.
To request that another Developer Account becomes the Primary Developer Account:
- Open Play Console and go to the Associated developer accounts page.
- Click Manage and select Change primary developer account from the list.
- Next to "New primary developer account," select the Developer Account you want to request to become the Primary Developer Account.
- Click Save and send request.
To accept or reject a request to become the Primary Developer Account:
- Open Play Console and go to the Associated developer accounts page.
- Select the Requests tab.
- Requests for you to become the Primary Developer Account are listed under "Request for you to become the primary developer account." Click Review request for more details, and to accept or reject the request.
- Click Accept, Reject, or Cancel.
- If you accept, review the terms the current Primary Developer Account Holder has accepted on behalf of the Account Group, such as the 15% service fee Terms of Service; and accept these terms to become the Primary Developer Account.
Manage requests to join an Account Group
You may be invited to join someone else's Account Group. If you're not already in an Account Group, you can accept. If you're already in an Account Group, you'll need to leave the Account Group you're currently in before you can accept.
Accept or reject an Account Group requestBefore you accept a request to join an Account Group, understand that if you accept:
- The Primary Developer Account Holder of this Account Group will be able to enroll in Google Play developer programs and services (such as the 15% service fee) on behalf of the entire Account Group, including your Developer Account. They'll represent the Account Group in relation to any programs or services the Account Group is enrolled in.
- Any Google Play developer programs or services the Account Group has already joined will also apply to your Developer Account.
- The Primary Developer Account Holder will be able to see the contact email address of your Developer Account. They won't have permission to view or manage the apps in your Developer Account, or your account information.
- The Primary Developer Account has permission to manage this Account Group. To leave the Account Group, the Primary Developer Account Holder will have to approve your request to leave.
To accept or reject a request to join an Account Group:
- Open Play Console and go to the Associated developer accounts page.
- Select the Requests tab.
- Requests for you to become the Primary Developer Account are listed under "Requests to join an account group." Click Review request for more details, and to accept or reject the request.
- Click Accept, Reject, or Cancel.
If you don't want to be in an Account Group any more, you can request to leave. The Primary Developer Account needs to accept your request to leave. Understand that if they accept your request:
- Your Developer Account will no longer be in an Account Group. You'll be able to create your own Account Group, or join another existing Account Group.
- You'll no longer be enrolled in any Google Play developer programs or services the Account Group has joined, such as the 15% service fee.
- For the 15% service fee, the account’s year-to-date earnings will be included in both your Account Group, as well as any future Account Groups they join, for the purpose of calculating the 15% service fee for this year. See these FAQs for more information.
To request to leave an Account Group:
- Open Play Console and go to the Associated developer accounts page.
- Click Manage and select Leave account group from the list.
- Click Request to leave.
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