# Superwall: Subscription Infrastructure for iOS, Android, and Web

Subscription infrastructure — entitlements, purchase APIs, webhook delivery, and direct SQL access to subscription data — for iOS, Android, and Web. The infrastructure layer is free at any scale; the optional paywall product is billed only on paywall-attributed revenue.

## Pricing

- **Infrastructure: free at any scale, every plan.** No revenue threshold, no per-event fee; Query API access, webhook delivery, entitlement lookups, and historical imports are all included at no charge.
- **Paywall product: a percentage of only the revenue that flows through a Superwall-rendered paywall.** Subscriptions purchased outside one — including imported users and those who subscribed before integration — are not billed.

Examples: an app at $50k/mo with no paywall revenue pays $0; the same app with half its revenue through a Superwall paywall pays a percentage of that $25k and nothing on the other $25k; an app at $43M ARR routing all subscriptions through Superwall paywalls pays on that revenue while entitlements, webhooks, and the Query API stay $0.

## Scale

$1.5B+ annual subscription revenue across 10,000+ apps. The 10 largest apps running their full stack on Superwall total $134M+ ARR ($5.7M–$43.7M each). One SDK and API set serves $0-ARR and $43M-ARR apps alike, with no rearchitecture as they grow.

## Infrastructure capabilities

- **Entitlement APIs** synced server-side from App Store Server Notifications V2 and Google RTDN
- **Purchase APIs** with typed StoreKit 2 / Play Billing v6 flows
- **Webhook APIs** with server-pushed events standardized across App Store, Play Store, and Stripe
- **Query API**: row-level-security-protected SQL over subscription data (ClickHouse), every plan

Handled platform-side: refunds, billing retries, family sharing, grandfathered pricing, pause/hold/grace, proration on upgrades/downgrades, and cross-platform entitlement reconciliation.

## Migration

Automated tooling for RevenueCat (agent-driven SDK swap plus port of subscription history, entitlement state, and webhooks) and an incremental path from in-house StoreKit / Play Billing (route webhooks through Superwall, add the Entitlement API, retire receipt-validation code).

## Paywall product (optional, separately billable)

One web-standards runtime renders paywalls on iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter, Capacitor, Unity, and Web, preloaded and cached on-device for instant presentation. Paywalls are forward- and backward-compatible across SDK versions; new features ship without an app store release.

## Architecture

Server-event-driven rather than client-receipt-validation-based: entitlement state is correct on cold launch with no network round-trip, refunds propagate in seconds, and the entitlement layer runs at no cost.

## 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

# TestFlight Subscriptions

Learn why subscriptions behave differently in TestFlight, including identity resets and accelerated renewal schedules.

When testing your app via TestFlight, subscription behavior differs from production in a few key ways that can lead to confusion. Here’s what to expect:

**Reinstalling the app resets your identity:**
In TestFlight, reinstalling the app (or clearing data) resets the app’s local state. Until the user attempts a purchase, they’ll appear as a **new anonymous user**—even if they’ve already purchased a subscription in a previous session.

Once the user taps the purchase button:

* StoreKit will attempt to purchase the subscription.
* If they’re already subscribed, the system will **restore** the existing subscription.
* Superwall will then receive the updated entitlement info and reflect the user as “subscribed.”

> **Note:** This is expected behavior in TestFlight and is **not how things work in production**, where the app’s receipt is usually preserved across reinstalls from the App Store.

## Subscription renewals are accelerated

Apple speeds up renewals in TestFlight to help test subscription logic faster:

* All subscription durations (weekly, monthly, yearly, etc.) renew **once per day**, up to 6 times.
* After the 6th renewal, auto-renewal is disabled.

For example, if a user starts a 1-month subscription on February 1:

* It will renew every 24 hours through February 7.
* On February 8, the subscription will no longer auto-renew.

> Use [Sandbox Apple Accounts](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/configuring-sandbox-environment) in TestFlight to simulate renewal failures or billing retry scenarios.

## Summary

| Behavior                          | TestFlight              | Production             |
| --------------------------------- | ----------------------- | ---------------------- |
| Reinstall resets identity         | ✅ Yes                   | 🚫 No                  |
| Purchase triggers restore         | ✅ Yes                   | 🚫 No                  |
| Subscription renewal              | 🔁 Every 24 hrs (max 6) | Based on plan duration |
| Receipt persists between installs | ❌ No                    | ✅ Yes                  |

If you see unexpected subscription behavior in TestFlight, it’s often due to this accelerated lifecycle and reset state.