# 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

# SuperwallEvent

An enum representing analytical events that are automatically tracked by Superwall.

> **Info:** These events provide comprehensive analytics about user behavior and paywall performance. Use them to track conversion funnels, user engagement, and revenue metrics in your analytics platform.

> **Tip:** Common events to track for conversion analysis include `triggerFire`, `paywallOpen`, `transactionStart`, and `transactionComplete`.

## Purpose

Represents internal analytics events tracked by Superwall and sent to the [`SuperwallDelegate`](/docs/ios/sdk-reference/SuperwallDelegate) for forwarding to your analytics platform.

## Signature

```swift
public enum SuperwallEvent {
  // User lifecycle events
  case firstSeen
  case appOpen
  case appLaunch
  case appClose
  case sessionStart
  case identityAlias
  case appInstall
  
  // Deep linking
  case deepLink(url: URL)
  
  // Paywall events
  case triggerFire(placementName: String, result: TriggerResult)
  case paywallOpen(paywallInfo: PaywallInfo)
  case paywallClose(paywallInfo: PaywallInfo)
  case paywallDecline(paywallInfo: PaywallInfo)
  case paywallPageView(paywallInfo: PaywallInfo, data: PageViewData)
  case paywallWebviewProcessTerminated(paywallInfo: PaywallInfo)
  case paywallPreloadStart(paywallCount: Int)
  case paywallPreloadComplete(paywallCount: Int)
  
  // Transaction events
  case transactionStart(product: StoreProduct, paywallInfo: PaywallInfo)
  case transactionComplete(transaction: StoreTransaction?, product: StoreProduct, type: TransactionType, paywallInfo: PaywallInfo)
  case transactionFail(error: TransactionError, paywallInfo: PaywallInfo)
  case transactionAbandon(product: StoreProduct, paywallInfo: PaywallInfo)
  case transactionRestore(restoreType: RestoreType, paywallInfo: PaywallInfo)
  case transactionTimeout(paywallInfo: PaywallInfo)
  
  // Subscription events
  case subscriptionStart(product: StoreProduct, paywallInfo: PaywallInfo)
  case freeTrialStart(product: StoreProduct, paywallInfo: PaywallInfo)
  case subscriptionStatusDidChange
  
  // System events
  case deviceAttributes(attributes: [String: Any])
  case reviewRequested(count: Int)

  // Permission events (Request permission action)
  case permissionRequested(permissionName: String, paywallIdentifier: String)
  case permissionGranted(permissionName: String, paywallIdentifier: String)
  case permissionDenied(permissionName: String, paywallIdentifier: String)
  
  // And more...
}
```

## Parameters

Each event case contains associated values with relevant information for that event type. Common parameters include:

* `paywallInfo: PaywallInfo` - Information about the paywall
* `data: PageViewData` - Page-level details for `paywallPageView`, including navigation direction and the previous page when available. New in 4.14.2.
* `product: StoreProduct` - The product involved in transactions
* `url: URL` - Deep link URLs
* `attributes: [String: Any]` - Device or user attributes
* `count: Int` - For `reviewRequested`, the number of times a review has been requested (available in version 4.8.1+)
* `permissionName: String` / `paywallIdentifier: String` - The permission requested from the paywall and the identifier of the paywall that triggered it (new in 4.12.0).
* `paywallCount: Int` - Total number of paywalls being preloaded when `paywallPreloadStart`/`paywallPreloadComplete` fire (new in 4.12.0).
* `paywallInfo.presentationId` - A unique identifier shared across events from the same paywall presentation. Available in 4.14.2+ and included in `eventInfo.params` as `presentation_id`.

## Returns / State

This is an enum that represents different event types. Events are received via [`SuperwallDelegate.handleSuperwallEvent(withInfo:)`](/docs/ios/sdk-reference/SuperwallDelegate).

## Usage

These events are received via [`SuperwallDelegate.handleSuperwallEvent(withInfo:)`](/docs/ios/sdk-reference/SuperwallDelegate) for forwarding to your analytics platform.

## Permission events (4.12.0+)

> **Note:** The **Request permission** action for the paywall editor is rolling out and isn't visible in the dashboard yet. Editor support is coming very soon, so you may not see the action in your workspace today.

When you wire the **Request permission** action in the paywall editor, the SDK emits `permission_requested`, `permission_granted`, and `permission_denied` events. Use them to track opt-in funnels or adapt your UI:

```swift
func handleSuperwallEvent(withInfo eventInfo: SuperwallEventInfo) {
  switch eventInfo.event {
  case .permissionRequested(let permission, let paywallId):
    logger.info("Prompting \(permission) from paywall \(paywallId)")
  case .permissionGranted(let permission, _):
    analytics.track("permission_granted", properties: eventInfo.params)
  case .permissionDenied(let permission, _):
    showSettingsNudge(for: permission)
  default:
    break
  }
}
```

See the [Request permissions from paywalls guide](/docs/ios/guides/advanced/request-permissions-from-paywalls) for setup details and Info.plist requirements.

## Paywall preloading events (4.12.0+)

`paywallPreload_start` and `paywallPreload_complete` fire whenever the SDK preloads cached paywalls in the background. Both events include `paywall_count` inside `eventInfo.params`, and the enum cases expose the same value via `paywallCount`. This makes it easy to time or monitor cache warm-up:

```swift
switch eventInfo.event {
case .paywallPreloadStart(let count):
  Metrics.shared.begin("paywall_preload", metadata: ["count": count])
case .paywallPreloadComplete(let count):
  Metrics.shared.end("paywall_preload", metadata: ["count": count])
default:
  break
}
```

Pair these events with the [`shouldPreload`](/docs/ios/sdk-reference/PaywallOptions#properties) option if you want to compare “on-demand” versus background caching strategies.