Guideline 4.5.3 - Design: Spam via Push Notifications

Apple is rejecting your app because it uses Apple Push Notification service (APNs) to send spam, including unsolicited promotional messages, phishing attempts, or deceptive content through push notifications. Guideline 4.5.3 specifically prohibits using push notifications for advertising, promotions, or direct marketing purposes unless users have explicitly opted in and there is a clear way to opt out. This rejection can also be triggered if Apple's review team examines your push notification implementation and determines that the app's notification patterns are likely to result in spam-like behavior — even if you haven't sent any yet. If your backend shows marketing campaign infrastructure tied to push tokens, or if your notification categories suggest promotional intent, the reviewer may preemptively flag this. The key distinction is between transactional notifications (order updates, reminders the user set, security alerts) and promotional notifications (sales announcements, feature promotions, re-engagement campaigns). Transactional notifications are expected and welcome. Promotional notifications require explicit opt-in. The fastest compliant path is to implement a clear notification preferences screen where users can control exactly which types of notifications they receive, with marketing/promotional notifications defaulted to off.