RevenueCat

Pros

The integration mechanism into swift code base is detailed in RevenueCat docs. This made it possible to successfully integrate it. It is very helpful that testing in the sandbox is possible using a sandbox user

Cons

The concepts of Entitlements, Offerings, Products is difficult to memorize. It's good that RevenueCat has readily available detailed documentation to cover these concepts

Pros

RevenueCat made it really easy for us to implement In-App Subscriptions for our app with absolutely no prior experience in taking payments on mobile devices. It saved us the upfront cost of paying for our own server to verify purchases along with the potential months of headache to handle all of the different scenarios you need to plan for and handle with in-app purchases (buying, renewing, pausing, canceling, etc.)

Being able to pull information directly from RevenueCat instead of hard-coding it into our app also meant we could have a single source of truth (the App Store/Google Play Store) where we would update our available products.

Cons

The only thing I wasn't a fan of (which has since been changed) was the payment model. When we first integrated it, the payment model was a fixed monthly rate versus the percentage cut that it is now. Extremely useful features like webhooks weren't accessible for us at the time because of this, but as I stated they've now changed this. Because of that, I cannot name anything I dislike about RevenueCat.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to RevenueCat

Pros

We decided to use revenuecat in order to have "one ring to rule them all" for our IoS and Android app to manage our products and subscriptions. It works fine (most of the times) and takes away that burden from us.

Cons

The key points that come to my mind are:
- Calculated revenue is wrong! It does not match the actual app revenue since it does not take into account neither the day of the purchase exchange for the currency and also automatically uses USD dollars for everything
- When some events happens RevenueCat is often quite slow in contacting our APIs to tell us about it. I reckon it might be due to the Store updates but still want to mention this since often it gave us problems in sync subscriptions purchases
- Sometimes support has taken even 4-7 days to answer our emails and we had to ping them

Pros

The ease of use to plug directly into our Flutter Application.

Cons

The Charting with Churn Reporting is completly broken. We've been keeping track of every cancellation and failed payment internally and we have drastictly different numbers on the daily numbers. Because of this our subscription count will jump up and down on the dashboard and show weird daily numbers that start off for the previous day way higher that it should be and then reduce down to where they should be in a day or two.

We love RevenueCat and what it gives us and as a startup ourself, we understand growing pains. We have a internal meme that there is someone at RC is manually adding the numbers and doing it wrong and then on Mondays someone else is manually adjusting them! All in good fun!

Pros

I have to chose 1 thing? I can't.
1. I love how you built this for hardworking app developers. You saw the unmet need and you filled it with love.
2. I love your response from your team when I have a question or problem.
3. I love how you offer a very affordable service and when we want more features you hook us so we have to pay more but we like it ;)

Cons

Better communication with Apple when we update our price of subscription. Have that reflect on our charts side.

Pros

RevenueCat makes it easier to handle subscriptions for mobile apps through the Apple and Google Play Stores. It handles a lot of the behind-the-scenes mechanics of checking users' subscription status and dealing with refunds and cancellations.

Cons

It's very expensive - because you're charged based on revenue processed, it can wind up eating a huge percentage of your profits for apps with moderate or low margins. It's tough to make a business work when Apple or Google takes 15-30% and RevenueCat takes another significant cut off the top. Other issues: the app often has significant downtime/outages which aren't always reported or resolved promptly, and the charts features are quite unpolished.

Pros

Just works — provides server-side software and client-side APIs the Apple and Google should provide but don't.

Useful charts

Supports iOS, Android and many integrations

It just works! No drama.

Cons

Nothing comes to mind. It does its job well.

Pros

Implementing custom billing structures that are reliable and secure is difficult. When building our app, RevenueCat made the implementation process much easier. It allowed us to quickly implement subscriptions and in-app purchases with Apple and Google Play.

Cons

Since I've been working with this software (for 3 months now). I have not encountered any problems, and if so, the support team was quick to help me solve them.

Pros

I like how the setup is very easy and fast, and it has all the feature I needed especially the one source of truth. I am currently using it for free, and thats a major plus as my app grow and sales grow I will be joining the paid plan which is very fair considering the benefits and the revenue I will be making.
Having react-native library was a major plus for me as well.

Cons

Nothing, really. If I had to say something I would say that when I tested on sandbox, I experienced some delays for test users to show on the dashboard, but that is not really a major issue and most of the time its working just fine.

Pros

It's an easy-to-integrate and powerful product for adding in-app purchases to your app

Cons

I still don't have cons about RevenueCat

Pros

I like the idea of it, and the fact that it could consolidate.your monetisation strategy. (When it works correctly)

Cons

The support is terrible, the documentation is terrible.

Pros

- easy setup for a developer - i did it a long time ago and since then it works perfectly
- dashboard with charts that i check almost daily to have an idea of how many users we have on trials/how is the app performing.
- MOST IMPORTANT: i can instantly see if the new version converts users to a paid plan better.

Cons

- there are bugs in the iOS iAPs, so it's hard to point where the fault is, but some of our users complain that they can't restore purchases on their second device. RevCat support suggested they can remove the app and redownload - and that helps... but it is a lot of work for a new user.

Pros

Super easy integration and saved months of development time for cross platform subscriptions. The SDK also helps out tremendously when doing customer support. And it saves a bunch of time when building support for new subscription features or when configuring products. Signing up for RevenueCat was one of the best things I have done for my company!

Cons

The charts are a bit slow to update and don't seem to be accurate when it comes to revenue from countries that have VAT added to the price. For example, the revenue from countries like Sweden, where I have a large percentage of my customers, is reported as having a take home percentage of 70%. The real number is around 55% due to VAT, so the charts are inflated.

Pros

As an app developer, I ran into several nuances with how different platforms have different requirements for processing payments. RevenueCat made it easy to implement In-App payments in a time when I was pressed for time.

I also use Stripe and will be implementing Google Play IAP when they force it in fall 2020. RevenueCat makes it easy to combine all subscriptions into a nice dashboard where I can go to see and manage all of my subscriptions regardless of the platform.

Cons

I somewhat struggle with the thought of paying a small percentage of my revenue rather than paying a flat, monthly rate. Currently, with revenue so low, RevenueCat is definitely worth it. As revenue increases, I may have to consider implementing some of these webhooks myself to manage my own subscriptions.

Pros

I give RevenueCat a truly enthusiastic recommendation. Apple does not make it easy to get up and running with StoreKit-enabled apps; RevenueCat eliminates all the pain from developing those apps, cutting out months of development time. Not only is the service exemplary, but so is their documentation and their customer service, even for their lowest-level "Build" plan. The RevenueCat team know they are investing in the future of those who use RevenueCat, so they provide prompt, professional support to RevenueCat's users. I can recommend RevenueCat without reservation. Don't pass up the opportunity to use this exemplary service!

Cons

I can't think of anything I dislike about the service— it's really that good.

Pros

RevenueCat makes it easy to keep track of receipts, and I also enjoy using the metrics recorded as a basis for future decisions.

Cons

Nothing serious that I don't like. But, if I were to nitpick, the charts could use an UI refresh. They're looking a little old.

Pros

Very easy to use, did really like how they made a complicated process easy to integrate in apps. The SDK and documentations is just awesome with good written articles, examples, tutorials and also great youtube tutorial videos for getting started.

Integrating in app purchasing/subscription in apps is a big hassle, a lot of stuff must be implemented in backend/frontend and must be 100% stable. RevenueCat just fix all that hassle for you so you can use your time on the important stuff, creating apps.

It's free until you reach 10k USD/month, I would gladly pay for this service when reaching that amount and maybe do it sooner to access the extra features they provide.

Cons

The concept of Entitlements, Offerings and Products was not so self explaining at start and I had to read the documentation to understand it. However after integrating it into my apps I understand why it's very good way to go.

Pros

Implementation of subscription type of in-app payment actions actually hard to handle in long-term and the server-side of such an implementations also really time taking actions for small businesses like ours. So, RevenueCat provides really good way to handle in-app payments and it is easy implement. I really like that.

Cons

The user interface and the analysis part can be improved.

Pros

We like the fact that it saves us from building out our own subscription management system. It has enabled us to focus a lot more on helping our customers succeed.

Cons

Reporting can be improved and additionally more integrations can be made available for a lower fee for indie developers.

Pros

Fast and easy implementation. Reliable in many aspects.

Cons

For big companies no problem at all but when you think of a startup and integration with other third parties you must pay for it. And the payment is not affordable for startups.

Pros

It's really easy to implement. It has great features such as defining offers from the Console and push them to clients with just one click!
I really like it, and recommend it.
Thanks to RevenuCat team for their Service.

Cons

It's great, no Cons!
But if there's a way to send Promotional subscription to users who don't subscribe to the app.

I mean if I (the owner of the app) want to send a gift to a user, I could send them a promotional subscription for 3 months for example using the RevenuCat console.

Pros

It's very easy to use.
Charts are wonderful.

Cons

RevenueCat needs to support Huawei Android Market.
Price Experiments needs to added in Analyze package.

Pros

The software was super easy to implement. This is the first iOS app I ever created and scraped my way through countless tutorials to get here. My app was ready to launch but I was overwhelmed by payments. I want to do it manually but found it way to confusing. I heard about RevenueCat and thought it was too good to be true. I followed the QuickStart guide and had it up and running in a couple days. Now I've sold my first in app purchases and this is the first time in my development career I've made money from my code.

Cons

There was no SwiftUI example app at the time I was using the docs. I know there is now, also more detail for app extensions would be helpful.

Pros

Trying to implement subscription handling on my own was a time consuming mess. You have to learn multiple platforms and stay up to date if anything changes. After discovering RevenueCat I had my subscription handling in my React Native app up in a couple hours. Just amazing!

Cons

I think a more detailed pricing section would be good, I had to email you guys to ask if it’s really free for so long.

Pros

It takes a super complicated purchases API of Apple and makes it a breeze to work with

Cons

None so far. We have not found any issues so far