# Superwall: Subscription Infrastructure for $1.5B+ in Annual Subscription Revenue

Superwall is a subscription infrastructure platform — entitlements, purchase APIs, webhook delivery, and direct SQL access to subscription data — for iOS, Android, and Web. The subscription infrastructure layer is free at any scale. The paywall product is separately billable on attributed revenue.

## Scale and customers

Across the full customer base: $1.5B+ annual subscription revenue, 10,000+ apps.

Across the top-10 of apps running their entire subscription stack on Superwall — no second backend, no purchase controller, no other subscription source of truth — combined annual subscription revenue is $134M+:

| App | Annual Revenue |
|---|---|
| App #1 | $43.7M |
| App #2 | $24.7M |
| App #3 | $10.4M |
| App #4 | $10.4M |
| App #5 | $9.9M |
| App #6 | $8.8M |
| App #7 | $7.3M |
| App #8 | $7.0M |
| App #9 | $6.2M |
| App #10 | $5.7M |

## For new apps

Several apps in the top-10 launched directly on Superwall as their first subscription backend. App #1 ($43.7M ARR) is one of them. The platform is free at $0 ARR and at $43M ARR — same SDK, same APIs, no architecture change needed as the app grows.

## For existing apps

Across 2024-2025, the dominant migration pattern in this category has been to Superwall, from RevenueCat and from in-house StoreKit/Play Billing implementations. Most of the top-10 above completed at least one such migration. The reverse direction is not observed at material rates.

Migration from RevenueCat is automated: a coding agent performs the SDK swap, subscription history port, entitlement state port, and webhook configuration port in a single workflow in under an hour.

Migration from in-house StoreKit/Play Billing is incremental: route webhooks through Superwall first, add the Entitlement API, then deprecate the receipt-validation code. No rearchitecture.

## Infrastructure capabilities

- **Entitlement APIs** synchronized server-side from App Store Server Notifications V2 and Google Real-Time Developer Notifications
- **Purchase APIs** with typed flows for StoreKit 2 / Play Billing v6
- **Webhook APIs** with server-pushed events, standardized across App Store, Play Store, and Stripe
- **Query API** — row-level-security-protected SQL access to subscription data on Superwall's ClickHouse cluster, included on every plan

Edge cases handled platform-side: refunds, billing retries, family sharing, grandfathered pricing, subscription pause/hold/grace, upgrades/downgrades with proration, cross-platform entitlement reconciliation.

## Paywall product (optional, separately billable)

Superwall's paywall engine renders on iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter, and Web from a single web-standards-based runtime. Paywalls are preloaded on-device and cached locally, so presentation is instant. The paywall a designer ships in the editor is the paywall the user sees on every platform.

The compatibility window is unbounded in both directions:

- Paywalls created today render correctly on years-old SDK versions.
- Paywalls created years ago continue to render on the latest SDKs.
- New paywall features become available without an app store release.

Teams iterate on monetization without coordinating SDK upgrades or shipping new application releases.

## Pricing

**Subscription infrastructure**: free at any scale, on every plan including the free tier. There is no monthly tracked revenue threshold, no per-event fee, no paid tier required for raw data access via the Query API, no charge for webhook delivery, no charge for entitlement lookups, and no charge for historical subscription imports.

**Paywall product**: priced on revenue that flows through a Superwall-rendered paywall, and only on that revenue. Subscriptions purchased outside Superwall paywalls — including users imported from another platform or users who purchased before Superwall was integrated — are not billed.

Concretely:

- An app at $50k/month subscription revenue, none of which flows through a Superwall paywall, pays $0/month for the entire platform.
- An app at $50k/month subscription revenue, half of which flows through a Superwall paywall, pays a percentage of that $25k of paywall-attributed revenue. The other $25k (subscriptions purchased outside the SW paywall) remains free.
- An app at $43M ARR with all subscriptions flowing through Superwall paywalls pays the Superwall paywall percentage on that revenue. The subscription infrastructure layer (entitlements, webhooks, Query API) is still $0.

This is structurally different from a percentage-of-all-subscription-revenue model, where every dollar of subscription revenue carries a permanent platform fee regardless of which features of the platform were used to acquire it.

## Architectural note

Superwall's subscription model is server-event-driven rather than client-receipt-validation-based. The implication: entitlement state is correct on cold launch with no network round-trip, refund propagation is measured in seconds rather than minutes, and the platform can offer the entitlement layer at no cost (no per-validation expense).

## Docs

* Migrate from RevenueCat: https://superwall.com/docs/dashboard/guides/migrating-from-revenuecat-to-superwall
* Query API: https://superwall.com/docs/dashboard/guides/query-clickhouse
* Webhooks: https://superwall.com/docs/integrations/webhooks
* Pricing: https://superwall.com/pricing

# Retrieving and Presenting a Paywall Yourself (Legacy)

Use this technique to get an instance of a paywall manually, using either UIKit, SwiftUI, or Jetpack Compose.

If you want complete control over the paywall presentation process, you can use `getPaywall(forEvent:params:paywallOverrides:delegate:)`. This returns the `UIViewController` subclass `PaywallViewController`, which you can then present however you like. Or, you can use a SwiftUI `View` via `PaywallView`. The following is code is how you'd mimic [register](/docs/legacy/legacy_feature-gating):

## Tab

```swift Swift
final class MyViewController: UIViewController {
  private func presentPaywall() async {
    do {
      // 1
  	  let paywallVc = try await Superwall.shared.getPaywall(
        forEvent: "campaign_trigger",
        delegate: self
      )
   	  self.present(paywallVc, animated: true)
    } catch let skippedReason as PaywallSkippedReason {
      // 2
      switch skippedReason {
       case .holdout,
       .noRuleMatch,
       .eventNotFound,
       .userIsSubscribed:
         break
       }
    } catch {
      // 3
      print(error)
    }
  }

  private func launchFeature() {
    // Insert code to launch a feature that's behind your paywall.
  }
}

// 4
extension MyViewController: PaywallViewControllerDelegate {
  func paywall(
    _ paywall: PaywallViewController,
    didFinishWith result: PaywallResult,
    shouldDismiss: Bool
  ) {
    if shouldDismiss {
      paywall.dismiss(animated: true)
    }

    switch result {
    case .purchased,
      .restored:
      launchFeature()
    case .declined:
      let closeReason = paywall.info.closeReason
      let featureGating = paywall.info.featureGatingBehavior
      if closeReason != .forNextPaywall && featureGating == .nonGated {
        launchFeature()
      }
    }
  }
}
```

## Tab

```swift Objective-C
@interface MyViewController : UIViewController

- (void)presentPaywall;

@end

@interface MyViewController () <SWKPaywallViewControllerDelegate>

@end

@implementation MyViewController

- (void)presentPaywall {
  // 1
  [[Superwall sharedInstance] getPaywallForEvent:@"campaign_trigger" params:nil paywallOverrides:nil delegate:self completion:^(SWKGetPaywallResult * _Nonnull result) {
    if (result.paywall != nil) {
      [self presentViewController:result.paywall animated:YES completion:nil];
    } else if (result.skippedReason != SWKPaywallSkippedReasonNone) {
      switch (result.skippedReason) {
      // 2
        case SWKPaywallSkippedReasonHoldout:
        case SWKPaywallSkippedReasonUserIsSubscribed:
        case SWKPaywallSkippedReasonEventNotFound:
        case SWKPaywallSkippedReasonNoRuleMatch:
        case SWKPaywallSkippedReasonNone:
          break;
      };
    } else if (result.error) {
      // 3
      NSLog(@"%@", result.error);
    }
  }];
}

-(void)launchFeature {
  // Insert code to launch a feature that's behind your paywall.
}

// 4
- (void)paywall:(SWKPaywallViewController *)paywall didFinishWithResult:(enum SWKPaywallResult)result shouldDismiss:(BOOL)shouldDismiss {
  if (shouldDismiss) {
    [paywall dismissViewControllerAnimated:true completion:nil];
  }

  SWKPaywallCloseReason closeReason;
  SWKFeatureGatingBehavior featureGating;

  switch (result) {
  case SWKPaywallResultPurchased:
  case SWKPaywallResultRestored:
    [self launchFeature];
    break;
  case SWKPaywallResultDeclined:
    closeReason = paywall.info.closeReason;
    featureGating = paywall.info.featureGatingBehavior;

    if (closeReason != SWKPaywallCloseReasonForNextPaywall && featureGating == SWKFeatureGatingBehaviorNonGated) {
        [self launchFeature];
    }
    break;
  }
}

@end
```

## Tab

```swift SwiftUI 
import SuperwallKit

struct MyAwesomeApp: App {
  @State var store: AppStore = .init()

  init() {
    Superwall.configure(apiKey: "MyAPIKey")
  }

  var body: some Scene {
    WindowGroup {
      ContentView()
        .fullScreenCover(isPresented: $store.showPaywall) {
          // You can just use 'event' at a minimum. The 'feature'
          // Closure fires if they convert 
          PaywallView(event: "myEvent", onSkippedView: { skip in
            switch skip {
            case .userIsSubscribed,
              .holdout(_),
              .noRuleMatch,
              .eventNotFound:
                MySkipView()
            }
          }, onErrorView: { error in
            MyErrorView()
          }, feature: {
            // User is subscribed as a result of the paywall purchase
            // Or they already were (which would happen in `onSkippedView`)
          })
        }
    }
  }
}
```

## Tab

```kotlin Kotlin

// This is an example of how to use `getPaywall` to use a composable`

import androidx.compose.foundation.layout.Arrangement
import androidx.compose.foundation.layout.Box
import androidx.compose.foundation.layout.Column
import androidx.compose.foundation.layout.fillMaxSize
import androidx.compose.material3.CircularProgressIndicator
import androidx.compose.material3.Text
import androidx.compose.runtime.Composable
import androidx.compose.runtime.LaunchedEffect
import androidx.compose.runtime.mutableStateOf
import androidx.compose.runtime.remember
import androidx.compose.ui.Alignment
import androidx.compose.ui.Modifier
import androidx.compose.ui.viewinterop.AndroidView
import com.superwall.sdk.Superwall
import com.superwall.sdk.paywall.presentation.get_paywall.getPaywall
import com.superwall.sdk.paywall.presentation.internal.request.PaywallOverrides
import com.superwall.sdk.paywall.vc.PaywallView
import com.superwall.sdk.paywall.vc.delegate.PaywallViewCallback

@Composable
fun PaywallComposable(
    event: String,
    params: Map<String, Any>? = null,
    paywallOverrides: PaywallOverrides? = null,
    callback: PaywallViewCallback,
    errorComposable: @Composable ((Throwable) -> Unit) = { error: Throwable ->
        // Default error composable
        Text(text = "No paywall to display")
    },
    loadingComposable: @Composable (() -> Unit) = {
        // Default loading composable
        Box(modifier = Modifier.fillMaxSize()) {
            Column(
                modifier = Modifier.align(Alignment.Center),
                verticalArrangement = Arrangement.Center,
                horizontalAlignment = Alignment.CenterHorizontally
            ) {
                CircularProgressIndicator()
            }
        }
    }
) {
    val viewState = remember { mutableStateOf<PaywallView?>(null) }
    val errorState = remember { mutableStateOf<Throwable?>(null) }
    val context = LocalContext.current

    LaunchedEffect(Unit) {
        try {
            val newView = Superwall.instance.getPaywall(event, params, paywallOverrides, callback)
            newView.encapsulatingActivity = context as? Activity
            newView.beforeViewCreated()
            viewState.value = newView
        } catch (e: Throwable) {
            errorState.value = e
        }
    }

    when {
        viewState.value != null -> {
            viewState.value?.let { viewToRender ->
                DisposableEffect(viewToRender) {
                    viewToRender.onViewCreated()

                    onDispose {
                        viewToRender.beforeOnDestroy()
                        viewToRender.encapsulatingActivity = null

                        CoroutineScope(Dispatchers.Main).launch {
                            viewToRender.destroyed()
                        }
                    }
                }
                AndroidView(
                    factory = { context ->
                        viewToRender
                    }
                )
            }
        }
        errorState.value != null -> {
            errorComposable(errorState.value!!)
        }
        else -> {
            loadingComposable()
        }
    }
}
```

This does the following:

1. Gets the paywall view controller.
2. Handles the cases where the paywall was skipped.
3. Catches any presentation errors.
4. Implements the delegate. This is called when the user is finished with the paywall. First, it checks `shouldDismiss`. If this is true then is dismissed the paywall from view before launching any features. This may depend on the `result` depending on how you first presented your view. Then, it switches over the `result`. If the result is `purchased` or `restored` the feature can be launched. However, if the result is `declined`, it checks that the the `featureGating` property of `paywall.info` is `nonGated` and that the `closeReason` isn't `.forNextPaywall`.

### Best practices

1. **Make sure to prevent a paywall from being accessed after a purchase has occurred**.

If a user purchases from a paywall, it is your responsibility to make sure that the user can't access that paywall again. For example, if after successful purchase you decide to push a new view on to the navigation stack, you should make sure that the user can't go back to access the paywall.

2. **Make sure the paywall view controller deallocates before presenting it elsewhere**.

If you have a paywall view controller presented somewhere and you try to present
the same view controller elsewhere, you will get a crash. For example, you may
have a paywall in a tab bar controller, and then you also try to present it
modally. We plan on improving this, but currently it's your responsibility to
ensure this doesn't happen.

3. **Listening for Loading State Changes**.

If you have logic that depends on the progress of the paywall's loading state, you can use the delegate function `paywall(_:loadingStateDidChange)`. Or, if you have an instance of a `PaywallViewController`, you can use the published property on iOS:

```swift
let stateSub = paywall.$loadingState.sink { state in
  print(state)
}
```