Ask to Buy is an Apple Family Sharing setting that converts a child's purchase or free download into a request. When a child taps Buy or Get, the App Store does not complete the transaction. It pauses, and a notification goes to the family organiser or a designated parent or guardian, who approves or declines on their own device. The control exists because a child account inside Family Sharing spends money held by an adult, and because in 2014 an American regulator concluded that one password entry could not count as consent for every charge that followed it.

It sits inside Apple's commerce layer, between purchase intent and billing. No bid stream field exposes it, yet it decides whether a child's install or in-app purchase happens.

How a request moves through the system

Family Sharing groups hold up to six people: one adult organiser, who invites up to five others and pays for shared purchases. Ask to Buy is switched on per child, under Settings, then Family, then the child's name, where a toggle labelled Require Purchase Approval sits. On a Mac the same control lives in System Settings under Family. It is not available for adult members.

Thresholds follow jurisdiction. In the United States, according to Apple, the organiser can enable Ask to Buy for any member under 18, and it is on by default below 13. In some states, countries and regions it is on by default and cannot be disabled for anyone under 18. The age at which an account counts as a child account also varies: Apple lists under 16 in Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands, under 14 in Italy and Spain, and under 18 in Brazil and Texas, as of September 2026.

Scope extends beyond paid content: App Store downloads, in-app purchases, apps shared by another family member, and iTunes Store and Apple Books purchases all trigger a request. Apple's support documentation states that approval is needed regardless of the app's age rating. Three actions bypass the gate: a child redownloading an item already owned, installing an update, and redeeming a code. School-distributed content is also excluded.

The child's request lands in Messages on the approver's iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple Watch. The approver reviews the listing and approves or declines. Approval requires signing in to the Apple Account or authenticating with Face ID, at which point the charge is made and the item downloads to the child's device. A decline triggers a notification to the child; a dismissed request has to be sent again. On iOS 16.1 and earlier, declined or dismissed requests were deleted after 24 hours. The organiser can nominate other adults as Parent/Guardian, and each receives the notifications. In South Korea, a child may be asked to verify age after approval.

What developers see

For an app, Ask to Buy appears as a transaction with no outcome. StoreKit's original payment interface includes a deferred state, which Apple defines as a transaction sitting in the queue while its final status awaits external action such as Ask to Buy. Apple tells developers to update the interface and await a further callback. The purchase may resolve hours later or not at all. A sandbox flag, simulatesAskToBuyInSandbox, allows the path to be tested.

StoreKit 2, introduced in 2021 for iOS 15, expresses the same condition as Product.PurchaseResult.pending, with the eventual transaction delivered through the Transaction.updates stream. The older enumeration is now marked deprecated in favour of that result.

Statute has added server-side plumbing. For Texas, Apple sends a RESCIND_CONSENT server notification when a parent withdraws approval, and the system then stops the app from launching on the child's device.

From a 15-minute window to Family Sharing

The feature grew out of a billing dispute. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the App Store allowed unlimited in-app charges for 15 minutes after a password entry, and children ran up significant bills in free-to-play games. The Washington Post reported on the problem in February 2011. Apple later settled a class action by offering 28 million customers a store credit or cash refund, which drew about 37,000 claims, according to a memo from chief executive Tim Cook.

On January 15, 2014, the FTC announced that Apple would pay at least $32.5 million in refunds and obtain express, informed consent before billing for in-app charges, with changes due by March 31, 2014. The commission voted 3-1, with Commissioner Joshua Wright dissenting. Cook told staff the case smacked of "double jeopardy," according to NBC News.

On June 2, 2014, Apple unveiled iOS 8 with Family Sharing, letting parents create Apple IDs for children that included Ask to Buy. The software shipped on September 17, 2014, and Ask to Buy was on by default for children under 13 from the start.

The mechanism changed little for a decade. Then legislators wrote it into law. Utah became the first state to make app stores responsible for age verification and parental consent in 2025, and Texas followed when Senate Bill 2420 was signed on May 27, 2025. Law firm Loeb & Loeb reported that Apple intended to collect those consents through its Family Sharing group. Privacy World, a law firm blog, reported that Apple clarified the requirement covers only purchases made through its In-App Purchase system, not physical goods.

After a December 23, 2025 injunction paused the rollout, Apple activated the Texas requirements on June 4, 2026, making parental consent mandatory for minors under 18 to download apps and make in-app purchases on new accounts there. Apple's support page, revised on July 1, 2026, adds that where regional law requires, apps must notify parents of significant changes, such as a new age rating, and parents must approve the app again.

Why Ask to Buy matters to marketers

For anyone acquiring younger users on iOS, Ask to Buy inserts an asynchronous human step into the conversion path. An ad click can produce a request rather than an install. Attribution windows, cohort curves and trial-to-paid rates for family audiences all absorb that delay, and an unanswered request looks identical to abandonment in most analytics.

Regulation widens the effect. In Texas, a teenager's free download now needs approval; earlier defaults captured mainly under-13s. The consent flow also reaches back into retention. Because an age rating change counts as a significant changeunder Texas law, a rating revision can put every approved child account back in front of a parent. That links Ask to Buy to questionnaire answers, including the 13+ floor for apps with social feeds.

Age is also becoming an explicit signal. Declared Age Range passes an age band to apps, while Google replaced two ad request tags with a single age treatment tag in May 2026. Ask to Buy decides whether a transaction happens; those signals decide how the user is addressed.

Limitations and disputes

The gate covers Apple's billing and nothing else. Since the April 30, 2025 contempt ruling in Epic v. Apple, developers on the United States storefront can link to external purchases without paying Apple a commission. Apple's documentation frames Ask to Buy around App Store downloads and in-app purchases and does not describe coverage of a card entered on a developer's website. Google is explicit on the equivalent point: Family Link states its approvals do not apply to alternative billing systems. Publishers such as Substack already weigh in-app purchase against other routes.

Updates pass without a request, so new features arrive silently unless a significant-change rule applies. Redemption codes are exempt. Developers reported in November 2021 that cancelling a request still returned pending under StoreKit 2, making genuine pending purchases impossible to track. Parents on Apple's forums have reported requests failing to arrive after updates.

The policy basis remains contested. Wright's 2014 dissent questioned the FTC's use of unfairness authority. Apple's November 2025 developer notice objected that Texas-style laws could force sensitive data collection even for weather or sports apps. Google's Kate Charlet argued in June 2025 that centralised app store checks create risks, while Meta, Snap and X backed the Texas law. The American Action Forum raised privacy and constitutional concerns about a federal App Store Accountability Act, introduced in May 2025, that would require the same consent nationally.

Not the same as

Purchase Sharing is the Family Sharing billing arrangement, under which the organiser's payment method covers members' purchases. Ask to Buy is the approval layer on top.

Google Play purchase approvals are the Family Link equivalent, offering All content, Only paid content, Only in-app purchases and No approval required. Since December 2022, children can also send purchase requests when no family payment method exists.

Ask to Browse applies the same request pattern to websites in Safari rather than to purchases.

AskToBuy on Shopify is an unrelated merchant application that lets shoppers build a cart and send it to someone else, such as a parent, to pay.

Recent developments

Apple extended the pattern on September 14, 2026. With iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27, Ask to Browse requires approval before a child reaches a new website in Safari, alongside Time Allowances that cap minutes by app category. The features had been previewed at WWDC26 on June 8, 2026, and they require every device in the Family Sharing group to run the new software.

The statutory framework is still growing. Age-gating duties are arriving across markets, age assurance is becoming a category of its own, and Apple revised its region-specific account rules on September 14, 2026. California's Digital Age Assurance Act takes effect on January 1, 2027. A control built to end surprise bills has become the default compliance path for American app store law.

Timeline

  • February 2011: The Washington Post reports on children's unauthorised in-app charges on Apple devices.
  • 2013: Apple settles a class action over children's in-app purchases, contacting 28 million customers.
  • January 15, 2014: The FTC announces Apple will pay at least $32.5 million in refunds.
  • March 31, 2014: Deadline for Apple to obtain express, informed consent before in-app charges.
  • June 2, 2014: Apple unveils iOS 8 with Family Sharing and Ask to Buy.
  • September 17, 2014: iOS 8 becomes available, with Ask to Buy on by default for children under 13.
  • June 2021: StoreKit 2 introduces the pending purchase result for iOS 15.
  • November 2021: Developers report that cancelled Ask to Buy requests return pending.
  • December 2022: Google Play introduces purchase requests for children without a family payment method.
  • 2025: Utah enacts the first state law making app stores responsible for age verification and parental consent.
  • April 30, 2025: A federal court holds Apple in contempt over anti-steering rules.
  • May 2025: The federal App Store Accountability Act is introduced in Congress.
  • May 27, 2025: Texas Senate Bill 2420 is signed into law.
  • November 4, 2025: Apple publishes its Texas developer notice and objects to the law's privacy implications.
  • December 23, 2025: A district court suspends SB 2420.
  • June 4, 2026: Texas parental consent requirements take effect for new Apple Accounts.
  • June 8, 2026: Apple previews Ask to Browse at WWDC26.
  • July 1, 2026: Apple updates its Ask to Buy documentation to cover significant change approvals.
  • September 14, 2026: Ask to Browse ships with iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27.
  • January 1, 2027: California's Digital Age Assurance Act takes effect.

Summary

Who: Apple operates Ask to Buy. Family organisers and designated parents or guardians approve requests, children send them, and developers handle the resulting deferred or pending transactions.

What: A Family Sharing control that turns a child's App Store download, in-app purchase or media purchase into a request requiring adult approval before any charge or download takes place.

When: Announced on June 2, 2014 and shipped with iOS 8 on September 17, 2014, following the FTC's January 2014 settlement. It became mandatory for under-18 accounts in some jurisdictions, including Texas from June 4, 2026, and was extended to websites through Ask to Browse on September 14, 2026.

Where: On iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch across the App Store, iTunes Store and Apple Books, with age thresholds and defaults set by state, country or region.

Why: Child accounts spend an adult's money, and regulators required express consent before each charge. App store accountability laws have since turned the same approval step into the mechanism for statutory parental consent.