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family sharing; allow each user to pay

How can I set up family sharing but allow each user to pay for their purchases?

iPhone 14 Pro Max, iOS 16

Posted on May 5, 2023 11:38 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 5, 2023 2:13 PM

The short answer is only one person, the Organizer, can (and must) have a card, but the Organizer can avoid having this charged by others by having others make sure they have adequate personal balance to cover their purchases. Other family members can only pay for things by using their personal balance or by letting the remainder automatically roll over to the Organizer's payment method (but not the Organizer's personal account balance).


The alternative is described in this document: Add a family member to your shared subscriptions - Apple Support

"If you're the family organizer and you don't want to pay for family members' purchases and subscriptions, you can turn off Purchase Sharing [ How to share purchases with your family - Apple Support ]. When Purchase Sharing is turned off, everyone must use their own payment method. When Purchase Sharing is turned off, family members can share subscriptions, but they can't share individual purchases like apps or books."


=Full details=

From: How to share purchases with your family - How to share purchases with your family - Apple Support

"When you turn on purchase sharing, everyone in your family gets access to apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books that family members buy. The family organizer is billed for family members' purchases."

Ideally the second sentence would also mention that others can still pay for their own items, they just have to use personal account balance to do so (it is mentioned if you go to the tiny footnote near the bottom of the page and follow the link there). Turning on purchase sharing simply activates the feature whereby if a family member does not have adequate personal balance to pay for something then the organizer's payment method (e.g., credit card) will be charged.

Read the document for the link to "learn how purchases are billed if a family member has Apple ID balance" ( How apps, content, and subscriptions from Apple are billed - Apple Support ). This tells you how it works. Essentially the payment method for Family Sharing is automatic:


1. If anybody in the family buys or subscribes to something, Apple first attempts to charge the item to that individual's Apple Account (Apple ID) balance, if any.

2. If a family member does not have enough personal Apple Account balance, any excess will be charged to the Family Organizer's primary payment method (usually a card of some kind). The Organizer's personal balance will not be used for purchases made by other family members. If it cannot bill the primary payment method, the Organizer will need to make another payment method the primary method.


Also note: "Some purchases, including gifts, can't be billed to Apple ID balance and will be charged to the family organizer's payment method." "Some subscriptions might not be charged to Apple ID balance."


Ref:

- Family purchases and payments - How to share purchases with your family - Apple Support

- How apps, content, and subscriptions from Apple are billed - How apps, content, and subscriptions from Apple are billed - Apple Support

- Check your Apple ID balance - Check your Apple Account balance - Apple Support

- Add a payment method to your Apple ID - Add a payment method to your Apple ID - Apple Support

Adding funds to your Apple ID balance:

- How to redeem your Apple Gift Card or App Store & iTunes gift card - Apple Support

- Add money to your Apple Account balance - Apple Support



2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 5, 2023 2:13 PM in response to cyn__

The short answer is only one person, the Organizer, can (and must) have a card, but the Organizer can avoid having this charged by others by having others make sure they have adequate personal balance to cover their purchases. Other family members can only pay for things by using their personal balance or by letting the remainder automatically roll over to the Organizer's payment method (but not the Organizer's personal account balance).


The alternative is described in this document: Add a family member to your shared subscriptions - Apple Support

"If you're the family organizer and you don't want to pay for family members' purchases and subscriptions, you can turn off Purchase Sharing [ How to share purchases with your family - Apple Support ]. When Purchase Sharing is turned off, everyone must use their own payment method. When Purchase Sharing is turned off, family members can share subscriptions, but they can't share individual purchases like apps or books."


=Full details=

From: How to share purchases with your family - How to share purchases with your family - Apple Support

"When you turn on purchase sharing, everyone in your family gets access to apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books that family members buy. The family organizer is billed for family members' purchases."

Ideally the second sentence would also mention that others can still pay for their own items, they just have to use personal account balance to do so (it is mentioned if you go to the tiny footnote near the bottom of the page and follow the link there). Turning on purchase sharing simply activates the feature whereby if a family member does not have adequate personal balance to pay for something then the organizer's payment method (e.g., credit card) will be charged.

Read the document for the link to "learn how purchases are billed if a family member has Apple ID balance" ( How apps, content, and subscriptions from Apple are billed - Apple Support ). This tells you how it works. Essentially the payment method for Family Sharing is automatic:


1. If anybody in the family buys or subscribes to something, Apple first attempts to charge the item to that individual's Apple Account (Apple ID) balance, if any.

2. If a family member does not have enough personal Apple Account balance, any excess will be charged to the Family Organizer's primary payment method (usually a card of some kind). The Organizer's personal balance will not be used for purchases made by other family members. If it cannot bill the primary payment method, the Organizer will need to make another payment method the primary method.


Also note: "Some purchases, including gifts, can't be billed to Apple ID balance and will be charged to the family organizer's payment method." "Some subscriptions might not be charged to Apple ID balance."


Ref:

- Family purchases and payments - How to share purchases with your family - Apple Support

- How apps, content, and subscriptions from Apple are billed - How apps, content, and subscriptions from Apple are billed - Apple Support

- Check your Apple ID balance - Check your Apple Account balance - Apple Support

- Add a payment method to your Apple ID - Add a payment method to your Apple ID - Apple Support

Adding funds to your Apple ID balance:

- How to redeem your Apple Gift Card or App Store & iTunes gift card - Apple Support

- Add money to your Apple Account balance - Apple Support



Jul 2, 2024 10:54 AM in response to cyn__

Family Purchase Sharing has to me one of the dumbest things ever devised by someone at Apple. I recently decided to try Apple One Family. I enabled purchase sharing; but, only enabled two Apple IDs One of the members to my “family”. The other two were marked NOT ENABLED. Low and behold the next day I was charged for $45 for purchases made by one of the members who was not enabled. To make it even more disturbing, those purchases had been days if not weeks made prior to inviting them to the group. It’s been a bitter battle and I still don’t know if they removed the charges. I suppose this is what happens when Apple hires people with limited common sense and a poor understanding of writing the English language.


Them: “You had purchase sharing Enabled”

Me: “Only for two family members”.

Them: When you Enabled Purchase Sharing on the 1st screen, you allowed all family members to purchase on your card.”

Me: “Why have the ability to individually enable, if it doesn’t change the individuals ability to purchase?”

Them: “You need to switch to Not Enabled on the 1st screen”


The “why” never got straightened out. Just that you can have ENABLE active. After looking here, I think I may understand. Even though that family member was not enabled in the group, that just meant they couldn’t purchase items to share with the family; but, Apple decided by checking to ENABLE purchases for the family that the head of the family group should pay for all Apple purchases made by any group member regardless of whether they were part of the family at time of the purchase. Is my interpretation correct?

family sharing; allow each user to pay

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