When you set up purchase sharing, one adult in the family—the family organizer—agrees to pay for any purchases that family members make while they're part of the family group. With Ask to Buy, you can manage what your family purchases. And it's easy to change the payment method that you use with Family Sharing at any time.
Here’s how shared purchases work
Any time a family member makes a new purchase, it's billed directly to the family organizer's account. That means the family organizer pays for any App Store and other digital purchases of the family members. This also includes content that family members can't share. For example, ongoing subscriptions—like Apple Music Individual or Student Subscriptions—are paid for by the family organizer too. Any transaction receipts are sent directly to the family organizer.
After it's paid for, a purchased item is added to the account of the family member who made the purchase. If you turn off purchase sharing, each member keeps their purchases, even though they were paid for by the family organizer.
If you don't want to pay for purchases of a specific adult family member, you can remove them from your family group or turn off purchase sharing for everyone.
Check your purchase sharing settings
Review your Family Sharing settings to make sure that you're signed in with the correct Apple ID and that purchase sharing is turned on.
On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:
- Tap Settings > [your name] > Family Sharing. On iOS 10.2 or earlier, tap Settings > iCloud > Family.
- Under Shared Features, tap Purchase Sharing.
- Make sure that Share My Purchases is turned on, and that your account information is correct.
On your Mac:
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Family Sharing.
- Click Purchase Sharing.
- Confirm or change the Apple ID that you want to use to share content.
- Make sure that Share My Purchases is selected, and that your account information is correct.
If you want to change the Apple ID that you use to share purchases with your family, you can sign in with a different account once every 90 days. You can also update your shared payment method.
Change your Family Sharing payment method
If you're the family organizer, learn how to add, change, or remove payment methods that you have on file.
Learn more
Family Sharing requires a personal Apple ID signed in to iCloud. If your family has purchase sharing turned on, music, movies, TV shows, and books can be downloaded on up to 10 devices per account, five of which can be computers. iOS 8 or later and OS X Yosemite or later are required to set up or join a Family Sharing group. But we recommend you update to the latest iOS and macOS for full functionality. Not all content is eligible to be shared. Content can be hidden by family members; hidden content is not available for download. Content downloaded from family members or acquired via redemption codes is not subject to Ask to Buy.
Learn more about how App Store and iTunes Store purchases are billed.
*Ages may vary by country or region.