# 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

# Presenting Paywalls

Register Superwall placements from Unity C# scripts.

Placements are the main way to present paywalls. [Create a placement](/docs/dashboard/dashboard-campaigns/campaigns-placements#adding-a-placement)
in the Superwall dashboard, add it to a campaign, then register the same placement name from your
Unity code.

## Register a Placement

Call `RegisterPlacement` when the user tries to access a feature that may be paywalled.

```csharp C#
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
using Superwall;

public sealed class LevelGate : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField] private int levelNumber = 3;

    public void OnStartLevelPressed()
    {
        var handler = new PaywallPresentationHandler
        {
            OnPresent = info =>
            {
                Debug.Log($"Paywall presented: {info.Name}");
            },
            OnDismiss = (info, result) =>
            {
                Debug.Log($"Paywall dismissed: {result.Type}");
            },
            OnError = error =>
            {
                Debug.LogError($"Paywall error: {error}");
            },
            OnSkip = reason =>
            {
                Debug.Log($"Paywall skipped: {reason}");
            }
        };

        Superwall.Shared.RegisterPlacement(
            "start_level",
            parameters: new Dictionary<string, object>
            {
                { "level", levelNumber },
                { "source", "level_select" }
            },
            handler: handler,
            feature: StartLevel
        );
    }

    private void StartLevel()
    {
        Debug.Log("Feature unlocked");
        // Load the premium level, award the item, start the mode, etc.
    }
}
```

## When the `feature` Callback Runs

Superwall decides whether the placement should show a paywall based on the campaign configuration
downloaded at app start.

The `feature` callback runs when the user has access:

* The user already has an active subscription.
* The user purchases or restores from a gated paywall.
* The paywall is configured as non-gated.
* No paywall is configured for the placement.

If a gated paywall is dismissed without a purchase or restore, the `feature` callback does not run.

## Check the Presentation Result

Use `GetPresentationResult` when you need to inspect what Superwall would do for a placement without
presenting it. In games, this is useful for keeping unlockable UI in sync with your dashboard
configuration, such as showing lock icons on levels, dimming premium cosmetics, or adding an upgrade
badge to a game mode before the player taps it.

```csharp C#
Superwall.Shared.GetPresentationResult("start_level", completion: result =>
{
    switch (result.Type)
    {
        case PresentationResult.ResultType.Paywall:
            Debug.Log("A paywall is available for this placement.");
            break;
        case PresentationResult.ResultType.Holdout:
            Debug.Log("The user is in a holdout.");
            break;
        case PresentationResult.ResultType.NoAudienceMatch:
            Debug.Log("No audience matched.");
            break;
        case PresentationResult.ResultType.PlacementNotFound:
            Debug.LogWarning("Placement was not found in the dashboard.");
            break;
    }
});
```

> **Tip:** `GetPresentationResult` uses the same campaign and audience logic that would decide whether a
> paywall appears. Use it to render upsell UI ahead of time, then call `RegisterPlacement` when the
> player actually tries to unlock or start the gated content.