Advanced Purchasing

If you need fine-grain control over the purchasing pipeline, use a purchase controller to manually handle purchases and subscription status.

Using a PurchaseController is only recommended for advanced use cases. By default, Superwall handles all subscription-related logic and purchasing operations for you out of the box.

By default, Superwall handles basic subscription-related logic for you:

Purchasing: When the user initiates a checkout on a paywall.
Restoring: When the user restores previously purchased products.
Subscription Status: When the user's subscription status changes to active or expired (by checking the local receipt).

However, if you want more control, you can pass in a PurchaseController when configuring the SDK via configure(apiKey:purchaseController:options:) and manually set Superwall.shared.subscriptionStatus to take over this responsibility.

Step 1: Creating a `PurchaseController`

A PurchaseController handles purchasing and restoring via protocol methods that you implement.

// MyPurchaseController.swift

import SuperwallKit
import StoreKit

final class MyPurchaseController: PurchaseController {
  static let shared = MyPurchaseController()

  // 1
  func purchase(product: StoreProduct) async -> PurchaseResult {
    // Use StoreKit or some other SDK to purchase...
    // Send Superwall the result.
    return .purchased // .cancelled,  .pending, .failed(Error)
  }

  func restorePurchases() async -> RestorationResult {
    // Use StoreKit or some other SDK to restore...
    // Send Superwall the result.
    return .restored // Or failed(error)
  }
}

@import SuperwallKit;
@import StoreKit;

// MyPurchaseController

@interface MyPurchaseController: NSObject <SWKPurchaseController>
  + (instancetype)sharedInstance;
@end

@implementation MyPurchaseController

+ (instancetype)sharedInstance
{
  static MyPurchaseController *sharedInstance = nil;
  static dispatch_once_t onceToken;
  dispatch_once(&onceToken, ^{
    sharedInstance = [MyPurchaseController new];
  });
  return sharedInstance;
}

// 1
- (void)purchaseWithProduct:(SWKStoreProduct * _Nonnull)product completion:(void (^ _Nonnull)(enum SWKPurchaseResult, NSError * _Nullable))completion {

  // TODO
  // ----
  // Purchase via StoreKit, RevenueCat, Qonversion or however
  // you like and return a valid SWKPurchaseResult

  completion(SWKPurchaseResultPurchased, nil);
}

// 2
- (void)restorePurchasesWithCompletion:(void (^ _Nonnull)(enum SWKRestorationResult, NSError * _Nullable))completion {

  // TODO
  // ----
  // Restore purchases and return `SWKRestorationResultRestored` if successful.
  // Return an `NSError` if not.

  completion(SWKRestorationResultRestored, nil);
}

@end

Here’s what each method is responsible for:

Purchasing a given product. In here, enter your code that you use to purchase a product. Then, return the result of the purchase as a PurchaseResult. For Flutter, this is separated into purchasing from the App Store and Google Play. This is an enum that contains the following cases, all of which must be handled:
1. .cancelled: The purchase was cancelled.
2. .purchased: The product was purchased.
3. .pending: The purchase is pending/deferred and requires action from the developer.
4. .failed(Error): The purchase failed for a reason other than the user cancelling or the payment pending.
Restoring purchases. Here, you restore purchases and return a RestorationResult indicating whether the restoration was successful or not. If it was, return .restore, or failed along with the error reason.

Step 2: Configuring the SDK With Your `PurchaseController`

Pass your purchase controller to the configure(apiKey:purchaseController:options:) method:

// AppDelegate.swift

import UIKit
import SuperwallKit

@main
class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {
  func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {

    Superwall.configure(
      apiKey: "MY_API_KEY",
      purchaseController: MyPurchaseController.shared // <- Handle purchases on your own
    )

    return true
  }
}

@main
struct MyApp: App {

  init() {
    Superwall.configure(
      apiKey: "MY_API_KEY",
      purchaseController: MyPurchaseController.shared // <- Handle purchases on your own
    )
  }
  
  var body: some Scene {
    WindowGroup {
      ContentView()
    }
  }
}

// AppDelegate.m

@import SuperwallKit;

@implementation AppDelegate

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {
  // Override point for customization after application launch.
  [Superwall configureWithApiKey:@"MY_API_KEY" purchaseController:[MyPurchaseController sharedInstance] options:nil completion:nil];
  return YES;
}

Step 3: Keeping `subscriptionStatus` Up-To-Date

You must set Superwall.shared.subscriptionStatus every time the user's subscription status changes, otherwise the SDK won't know who to show a paywall to. This is an enum that has three possible cases:

.unknown: This is the default value. In this state, paywalls will not show and their presentation will be automatically delayed until subscriptionStatus changes to a different value.
.active(let entitlements): Indicates that the user has an active entitlement. Paywalls will not show in this state unless you remotely set the paywall to ignore subscription status. A user can have one or more active entitlement.
.inactive: Indicates that the user doesn't have an active entitlement. Paywalls can show in this state.

Here's how you might do this:

import SuperwallKit

func syncSubscriptionStatus() async {
  var purchasedProductIds: Set<String> = []

  // get all purchased product ids
  for await verificationResult in Transaction.currentEntitlements {
    switch verificationResult {
    case .verified(let transaction):
      purchasedProductIds.insert(transaction.productID)
    case .unverified:
      break
    }
  }

  // get entitlements from purchased product ids from Superwall
  let entitlements = Superwall.shared.entitlements.byProductIds(products)

  // set subscription status
  await MainActor.run {
    Superwall.shared.subscriptionStatus = .active(entitlements)
  }
}

@import SuperwallKit;

// when a subscription is purchased, restored, validated, expired, etc...
[myService setSubscriptionStatusDidChange:^{
  if (user.hasActiveSubscription) {
    [Superwall sharedInstance] setActiveSubscriptionStatusWith:[NSSet setWithArray:@[myEntitlements]]];
  } else {
    [[Superwall sharedInstance] setInactiveSubscriptionStatus];
  }
}];

subscriptionStatus is cached between app launches

Listening for subscription status changes

If you need a simple way to observe when a user's subscription status changes, on iOS you can use the Publisher for it. Here's an example:

subscribedCancellable = Superwall.shared.$subscriptionStatus
  .receive(on: DispatchQueue.main)
  .sink { [weak self] status in
    switch status {
    case .unknown:
      self?.subscriptionLabel.text = "Loading subscription status."
    case .active(let entitlements):
      self?.subscriptionLabel.text = "You currently have an active subscription: \(entitlements.map { $0.id }). Therefore, the paywall will not show unless feature gating is disabled."
    case .inactive:
      self?.subscriptionLabel.text = "You do not have an active subscription so the paywall will show when clicking the button."
    }
  }

You can do similar tasks with the SuperwallDelegate, such as viewing which product was purchased from a paywall.

Product Overrides

Product overrides allow you to dynamically substitute products on paywalls without modifying the paywall design in the Superwall dashboard.

When using a PurchaseController, you may want to override specific products shown on your paywalls. This is useful for:

A/B testing different subscription tiers
Showing region-specific products
Dynamically changing products based on user segments
Testing promotional pricing without modifying paywalls

// Configure product overrides when setting up Superwall
let paywallOptions = PaywallOptions()
paywallOptions.overrideProductsByName = [
  "primary": "com.example.premium_monthly_promo",
  "secondary": "com.example.premium_annual_promo",
  "tertiary": "com.example.premium_lifetime"
]

Superwall.configure(
  apiKey: "MY_API_KEY",
  purchaseController: MyPurchaseController.shared,
  options: paywallOptions
)

// Configure product overrides when setting up Superwall
SWKPaywallOptions *paywallOptions = [[SWKPaywallOptions alloc] init];
paywallOptions.overrideProductsByName = @{
  @"primary": @"com.example.premium_monthly_promo",
  @"secondary": @"com.example.premium_annual_promo", 
  @"tertiary": @"com.example.premium_lifetime"
};

[Superwall configureWithApiKey:@"MY_API_KEY" 
              purchaseController:[MyPurchaseController sharedInstance]
                        options:paywallOptions 
                     completion:nil];

How Product Overrides Work:

Product names (e.g., "primary", "secondary") must match exactly as defined in the Superwall dashboard's Paywall Editor
The SDK substitutes the original product IDs with your override IDs before fetching from the App Store
The paywall maintains its visual design while showing the substituted products
Your PurchaseController will receive the overridden products when purchase(product:) is called

Product overrides only affect the products shown on paywalls. They don't change your subscription logic or entitlement validation.

Advanced Purchasing

Step 1: Creating a PurchaseController

Complete example for iOS

Step 2: Configuring the SDK With Your PurchaseController

Step 3: Keeping subscriptionStatus Up-To-Date

Listening for subscription status changes

Product Overrides

On this page

Step 1: Creating a `PurchaseController`

Step 2: Configuring the SDK With Your `PurchaseController`

Step 3: Keeping `subscriptionStatus` Up-To-Date