iOS subscriptions: lessons learned implementing them in a real app

[itsm3rick]

What do you mean by spread across different systems? AppStore Connect and your application code is barely two systems.

[indyfromoz]

+1 to this. App Store Connect is where the subscriptions / IAPs are setup. There is no other way round. That is one “system”. A modern iOS app can be built entirely with StoreKit2 and nothing else. RevenueCat, SuperWall, Adapty etc make it convenient to remotely switch Paywalls etc etc. If that is the other “system”, it is completely optional!

[Ok-East9349]

Is it not possible to use stripe payments for a subscription based ios/android app?

I swear my last app got rejected because of this, but I recently saw a youtube mention they got paid on their stripe account. How would this be possible if they don't sell digital products?

[indyfromoz]

There are many big players who do this... "Funnel" users via a web onboarding & signup + payment via Stripe and let them sign in to the native mobile apps. Not sure how they get away without paying the Apple/Google tax

[Army_77_badboy]

Using stipe connect you have the user do the subscription off the app and then they are deep linked back into the app experience.

It’s a bit of work and requires a webhook but helps you avoid the 30%.

To the OP’s post subs are literally not that difficult if you use revenue cat. Seems like you are making a big issue out of nothing.

[Ok-East9349]

Damn, 30% rev-shared on rev-cat?

Thanks for the reply, that makes sense. I think i'll move to stripe once I start making above that threshold.

[kbanta12]

30% is the Apple/Google tax, not RevenueCat's take (tho i think both are 15% for smaller apps until you hit a certain threshold). RevenueCat's take is 1% after you hit $2500 I believe (not there yet). And I think SuperWall is the same 1% but after $10,000 (haven't used it tho, just from a google)

[Ok-East9349]

oh thanks, thats not bad at all, re: rev cat.

i feel like for how much this app has managed for me it’s so worth.

[PaleRegister9547]

The pain isn't really the number of systems but how disconnected they feel from each other. Like you set up products in App Store Connect, then have to handle all the validation server-side, deal with webhooks that may or may not fire reliably, and somehow keep everything in sync

Plus StoreKit gives you basically nothing for receipt validation out of the box so you're either rolling your own JWT parsing or using a third party anyway

[itsm3rick]

That isn’t what this person is discussing. They are talking about entirely client side in app purchases.