# 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

# Overview

Let customers purchase products online via Stripe, then link them to your iOS app with one seamless flow. No authentication required.

Superwall's web checkout integration makes it easy to set up purchasing funnels for your app via the web. Web checkout is powered by Stripe. Once an online purchase is complete, the customer will be redirected back to your app with a deep link that can be used to unlock content or features in your app via any associated [entitlement](/docs/dashboard/products#entitlements). Web checkout supports subscriptions and Stripe one-time purchases.

Web checkout requires the Superwall iOS SDK 4.2.0 or later.

> **Tip:** Visual learner? Go watch our web checkout tour over on YouTube
> [here](https://youtu.be/eUSIySsN1ZU).

## How it works

Superwall presents paywalls via the concept of [campaigns](/docs/dashboard/dashboard-campaigns/campaigns), and each campaign has one or more [placements](/docs/dashboard/dashboard-campaigns/campaigns-placements). A paywall is shown in a campaign when a placement is triggered after your [audience filters](/docs/dashboard/dashboard-campaigns/campaigns-audience) are evaluated. This setup is Superwall's foundation, and the web checkout flow works the exact same way.

The core difference? Each placement becomes a unique URL that you can share, send or email to present a user with a paywall that leads to a Stripe checkout flow. And just like with Superwall on apps, you can create experiments, try out different paywalls, run price tests and more.

![](https://superwall.com/docs/images/web2appflow.jpg)

## Overall flow

Refer to the individual pages below to get started, but for a quick, high-level overview - here's how web checkout works from beginning to end:

1. A Web Checkout app is added to an existing iOS project in Superwall.
2. Your checkout provider is configured with Superwall.
3. iOS app details and post-purchase behavior are configured in the provider's settings page (within Superwall).
4. Products are created *in* your payment provider, and imported into Superwall.
5. Within a campaign (a default one is provided), you attach those products to a paywall.
6. A user visits a placement URL, and performs the checkout flow.
7. After a successful purchase, the user is redirected based on your [post-purchase behavior setting](/docs/web-checkout/web-checkout-configuring-stripe-keys-and-settings#post-purchase-behavior):
   * **Redeem mode** (default): User is directed to download the app and click the redemption link
   * **Redirect mode**: User is redirected to your custom URL with purchase data
8. For Redeem mode: *On the device that they downloaded the app*, they click the redemption link.
9. Your iOS app is opened via a deep link (which means it must be set up with Superwall deep links, [docs here](/docs/sdk/quickstart/in-app-paywall-previews)).
10. In the `SuperwallDelegate`, `willRedeemLink()` is called, and then once it's fetched - `didRedeemLink(result:)` is called with the result of the redemption.
11. Finally, this user's account and purchase details are managed via a link they find in their [email receipt or by visiting a URL manually](/docs/web-checkout/web-checkout-managing-memberships).

## Getting setup

Before you start, you'll need to have a Superwall account and a Stripe account. You can create a Stripe account [here](https://dashboard.stripe.com/register).

1. **[Creating an app](/docs/web-checkout/web-checkout-creating-an-app):** First, you'll add a Web Checkout app to an existing project within Superwall.
2. **[Stripe setup](/docs/web-checkout/web-checkout-configuring-stripe-keys-and-settings):** Install the [Superwall Stripe app](https://marketplace.stripe.com/apps/superwall) for automatic configuration.
3. **[Managing products](/docs/web-checkout/web-checkout-adding-a-stripe-product):** Create or import products to add to your web paywalls.
4. **[Stripe one-time purchases](/docs/web-checkout/web-checkout-stripe-one-time-purchases):** Sell lifetime access, credit packs or other one-time products with Stripe.

### Creating paywalls and campaigns

5. **[Presenting paywalls](/docs/web-checkout/web-checkout-creating-campaigns-to-show-paywalls):** Set up a campaign, create some placements and add paywalls to begin showing them to customers.

### Associating entitlements to your iOS apps

6. **[Linking purchases to your iOS app](/docs/sdk/guides/web-checkout/linking-membership-to-iOS-app):** Once a purchase occurs, the user will be prompted to download your app and click on a redemption link.
7. **[Managing purchases](/docs/web-checkout/web-checkout-managing-memberships):** Users can restore purchases, manage subscriptions, update payment methods and view billing history.

### Testing purchases

8. **[Testing purchases](/docs/web-checkout/web-checkout-testing-purchases):** Test your web checkout flow with test purchases.

### App to Web

9. **[App to Web Checkout](/docs/web-checkout/web-checkout-direct-stripe-checkout):** For U.S. storefront customers, you can link from your iOS paywalls to Stripe checkout in Safari or the user's default browser.

## Troubleshooting

If a user has issues accessing their purchase in your app after paying via web checkout, direct them to your plan management page to retrieve their redemption link or manage billing. For example: `http://yourapp.superwall.app/manage`