# 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

# Test Mode

Simulate in-app purchases without Google Play using test mode, which lets you test your entire paywall flow end-to-end.

Test mode lets you simulate in-app purchases without involving Google Play Billing or any external purchase controller. When active, all purchases are faked and product data is retrieved from the Superwall dashboard. This makes it easy to test your entire paywall flow end-to-end, including purchase, restore, and entitlement changes, without needing a Google Play sandbox account or test tracks.

## How it works

When test mode is active:

* **Product data comes from the dashboard** instead of Google Play, so you don't need products set up in Google Play Console.
* **Purchases are simulated.** Instead of the Google Play purchase flow, a test mode drawer appears letting you choose to complete, abandon, or fail the transaction. Purchase events fire normally, so your analytics and delegate callbacks work as expected.
* **Restores are simulated.** A restore drawer lets you pick which entitlements to restore and in what state.
* **A configuration modal** appears on launch showing why test mode activated, your User ID, purchase controller status, device and user attributes, free trial override, and starting entitlements. You can use this to configure the test session before interacting with your paywalls.

## Activating test mode

There are two ways to activate test mode:

### 1\. From the dashboard

Mark specific users as **test store users** in the Superwall dashboard. When the SDK detects that the current user's ID matches a test store user from your config, test mode activates automatically. This is the most common approach.

### 2\. From the SDK

Set `testModeBehavior` on `SuperwallOptions` before calling `configure`:

```kotlin
val options = SuperwallOptions().apply {
    testModeBehavior = TestModeBehavior.ALWAYS
}

Superwall.configure(this, "your-api-key", options = options)
```

The available behaviors are:

| Behavior                | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `AUTOMATIC`             | **(Default)** Activates when the current user is marked as a test store user in the dashboard, or when the app's application ID doesn't match the one configured in the dashboard. Never activates when JUnit or Espresso is detected on the classpath. |
| `WHEN_ENABLED_FOR_USER` | Activates only when the current user is marked as a test store user in the dashboard. Ignores application ID mismatches.                                                                                                                                |
| `ALWAYS`                | Always activates test mode, regardless of dashboard configuration. Useful during local development.                                                                                                                                                     |
| `NEVER`                 | Never activates test mode, regardless of configuration.                                                                                                                                                                                                 |

## The configuration modal

When test mode activates, a modal appears before you interact with any paywalls. It displays:

* **Reason:** Why test mode activated (e.g., application ID mismatch, matched test store user, or always-on via options).
* **User ID:** Your current user ID, with a link to view the user in the dashboard.
* **Purchase Controller:** Whether you've provided a custom purchase controller.
* **Device Attributes:** Tap to view all device-level attributes the SDK is tracking.
* **User Attributes:** Tap to view all user-level attributes.
* **Free Trial Override:** Override free trial availability for all products. Choose **Use Default** (respects the product's actual trial status), **Force Available**, or **Force Unavailable**.
* **Starting Entitlements:** If you have entitlements configured, you can set each one's state before dismissing the modal. Available states include **Subscribed**, **In Grace Period**, **Billing Retry**, **Expired**, **Revoked**, and **Inactive**. For active states you can also set the offer type (**None**, **Trial**, or **Promotional**). This lets you test how your paywalls behave for users with different entitlement states.

Tap **Continue** to dismiss the modal and begin testing. Your selections persist across sessions.

## Simulating purchases

When you tap a purchase button on a paywall while test mode is active, a drawer appears instead of the Google Play purchase flow.

The drawer shows the product details (identifier, price, period, free trial availability, and entitlements) along with these options:

* **Confirm Purchase** (or **Start Free Trial** if the product has a free trial): Simulates a successful purchase. The product's entitlements are activated and your subscription status updates accordingly.
* **Abandon:** Closes the drawer without completing the purchase.
* **Fail:** Simulates a purchase failure.

Standard Superwall events (`transaction_start`, `transaction_complete`, `transaction_abandon`, `transaction_fail`, etc.) fire as they normally would, so you can verify your analytics and delegate callbacks.

## Simulating restores

When a restore is triggered while test mode is active, a drawer appears letting you select which entitlements to restore and in what state. This is useful for testing how your app handles different restore scenarios.

## When to use test mode vs. Google Play testing

|                  | Test mode                                                                                                | Google Play testing                                                       |
| ---------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Setup**        | No Google Play Console setup needed                                                                      | Requires products in Google Play Console and license testers configured   |
| **Products**     | Pulled from the Superwall dashboard                                                                      | Must exist in Google Play Console                                         |
| **Transactions** | Simulated via UI drawer                                                                                  | Real Google Play Billing transactions in a test environment               |
| **Best for**     | End-to-end paywall flow testing, verifying entitlement gating, testing without Google Play Console setup | Testing real billing behavior, receipt validation, subscription lifecycle |

Test mode is ideal for quickly validating your paywall presentation, purchase flows, and entitlement gating without any Google Play setup. For testing actual Google Play Billing behavior, use Google Play's license testing and test tracks instead.