# 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

# Request permissions from paywalls

Trigger Android runtime permission dialogs directly from a Superwall paywall action.

## Overview

Use the **Request permission** action in the paywall editor when you want to gate features behind Android permissions without bouncing users back to native screens. When the user taps the element, the SDK:

* Presents the corresponding Android system dialog.
* Emits analytics events (`permission_requested`, `permission_granted`, `permission_denied`).
* Sends the result back to the paywall so you can branch the UI (for example, swap a checklist item for a success state).

## Add the action in the editor

1. Open your paywall, select the button (or any element) that should prompt the permission, and set its action to **Request permission**.
2. Choose the permission you want to request. You can wire multiple buttons if you need to prime several permissions in a single flow.
3. Republish the paywall. No extra SDK configuration is required beyond having the proper `AndroidManifest.xml` entries.

## Declare the permissions in `AndroidManifest.xml`

| Editor option         | `permission_type` sent from the paywall | Required manifest entries                                                                                                            | Notes                                                                                                |
| --------------------- | --------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Notifications         | `notification`                          | `<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.POST_NOTIFICATIONS" />` (API 33+)                                                 | Devices below Android 13 do not require a runtime permission; the SDK reports `granted` immediately. |
| Location (Foreground) | `location`                              | `<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" />`                                                         | Also covers coarse location because FINE implies COARSE.                                             |
| Location (Background) | `background_location`                   | Foreground entry above **and** `<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_BACKGROUND_LOCATION" />` (API 29+)          | The SDK first ensures foreground access, then escalates to background.                               |
| Photos / Images       | `read_images`                           | `<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_MEDIA_IMAGES" />` (API 33+) or `READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE` for older OS versions | Automatically picks the right permission at runtime.                                                 |
| Videos                | `read_video`                            | `<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_MEDIA_VIDEO" />` (API 33+) or `READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE` pre-33                 |                                                                                                      |
| Contacts              | `contacts`                              | `<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_CONTACTS" />`                                                                |                                                                                                      |
| Camera                | `camera`                                | `<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />`                                                                       |                                                                                                      |
| Microphone            | `microphone`                            | `<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO" />`                                                                 | Added in 2.6.8.                                                                                      |

If a manifest entry is missing—or the permission is unsupported on the current OS level—the SDK responds with an `unsupported` status so you can show fallback copy.

## Analytics and delegate callbacks

Forward the new events through `SuperwallDelegate.handleSuperwallEvent` to keep your analytics platform and feature flags in sync:

```kotlin
override fun handleSuperwallEvent(eventInfo: SuperwallEventInfo) {
  when (val event = eventInfo.event) {
    is SuperwallEvent.PermissionRequested -> {
      analytics.track("permission_requested", mapOf(
        "permission" to event.permissionName,
        "paywall_id" to event.paywallIdentifier
      ))
    }
    is SuperwallEvent.PermissionGranted -> {
      FeatureFlags.unlock(event.permissionName)
    }
    is SuperwallEvent.PermissionDenied -> {
      Alerts.showPermissionDeclinedSheet(event.permissionName)
    }
    else -> Unit
  }
}
```

You can also log the newer [`customerInfoDidChange`](/docs/android/sdk-reference/SuperwallDelegate#customerinfodidchangefrom-customerinfo-to-customerinfo) callback if the permission subsequently unlocks new paywalls that grant entitlements.

## Status values returned to the paywall

The paywall receives a `permission_result` web event with:

* `granted` – The system dialog reported success (or no dialog was needed).
* `denied` – The user denied the request or previously denied it.
* `unsupported` – The platform or manifest doesn't allow the requested permission.

Use Liquid or custom Javascript inside the paywall to branch on these statuses—for example, replace a “Grant notification access” button with a checkmark when the result equals `granted`.

## Troubleshooting

* Seeing `unsupported`? Double-check the manifest entries above and confirm the permission exists on the device's API level (for example, notification permissions only apply on Android 13+).
* Nothing happens when you tap the button? Ensure the action is set to **Request permission** in the released paywall version.
* Want to provide next steps after a denial? Listen for `PermissionDenied` in your delegate to deep-link users into Settings or show educational copy.