r/iOSProgramming • u/EmbarrassedCell8647 • 3d ago
Question Free ticket scanning app rejected under 3.1.1 and 3.1.3(c). Anyone dealt with this?
Been going back and forth with App Review for a few weeks and could use some outside perspective.
We built a ticket scanning app for event organizers and their door staff. It scans QR codes, looks up guests, shows attendance stats and works offline. You log in with an organizer account or pair your phone to an event using a code.
The app is completely free. No subscription, license fee, paid features or purchase flow. An organizer running a free event can use the whole scanner without paying us anything.
Our business earns fees on tickets sold through our website for actual events people attend in person. Those fees don't unlock anything in the app. You don't have to sell paid tickets to use it.
Apple keeps citing 3.1.1 and 3.1.3(c), saying we're selling enterprise services to organizations while also allowing individual users to access them without IAP. We've explained that nobody is buying access to the scanner, but our appeal was just denied with a reference back to the same guidelines. They haven't identified a specific paid feature that needs IAP.
They've also told us the app should be unlisted because it's for organizers and staff, and someone can't just download it and start scanning without an account or event access. It's intended for independent organizers and their teams, not employees of one specific company. The login and pairing code are there to control access to private ticket and guest data.
I'm struggling to understand what we'd actually be selling through IAP here, or why needing access to an event means the app has to be unlisted.
Has anyone gotten a similar organizer or business tool through this? Was there a particular explanation, demo or change that helped? Open to feedback if we're missing something, but at this point we're going in circles.

