In-App Purchase and Subscription Specification Template

For most teams, yes. RevenueCat, Qonversion, and similar services handle receipt validation, entitlement management, cross-platform sync, and analytics. They abstract the differences between StoreKit and Google Play Billing. The cost (typically 1-2% of revenue above free tier) is almost always worth the engineering time saved. Build it yourself only if you have a dedicated payments team and specific requirements these services do not support.

Industry benchmarks vary by category, but 15-30% is typical for well-designed apps. Utility apps (weather, VPN) trend higher (25-40%) because the value proposition is clear. Content apps (news, education) tend toward 10-20%. The biggest lever for improving trial conversion is the trial length. 7-day trials convert better than 3-day trials because users have more time to build habits. Test different trial lengths with A/B experiments.

Cross-platform entitlements require server-side subscription management. When a user subscribes on either platform, validate the receipt server-side and store the entitlement in your database. On the other platform, check entitlements from your server rather than from the local store. RevenueCat handles this automatically. If building in-house, use user accounts (not device IDs) as the entitlement key.

Both Apple and Google take a 30% commission on in-app purchases and subscriptions for the first year. After a subscriber has been active for 12+ consecutive months, the commission drops to 15% (Apple's App Store Small Business Program and Google's reduced service fee). Apps earning under $1M per year also qualify for 15% on both platforms. Factor this into your pricing model.

Free trials work best for subscription apps where the value takes time to demonstrate (fitness, education, productivity). Discounted first periods work better when users already understand the value but need a price incentive. Pay-up-front discounts (e.g., "$0.99 for the first month") create commitment and improve trial-to-paid rates compared to free trials, but attract fewer trial starts. Test multiple offer types and measure trial-to-paid conversion, not just trial start rate. ---