On paper, skipping store fees looks great. In practice I saw new costs: payment gateway fees, failed charges, more refund handling, fraud checks, and the need to keep entitlements in sync. The upside is better control on offers, trials, and partial refunds, but support time is real.
If you moved first payment to the web, what did your net margin change after chargebacks, taxes, and support load? Any tips to keep support overhead low without hurting trust?
It improved margin, but only after I fixed failed payments and chargebacks.
Set up dunning emails and card updater. Add fraud checks before granting entitlements.
Support dropped when I added self-serve refunds and pauses. I used Web2Wave for the web paywall and synced to the app through their SDK so users saw access immediately.
Net margin went up once we added self-serve pause, downgrade, and quick refunds on web. Fewer tickets.
Web2Wave made it easy to update these flows fast. We tested messages weekly and watched refund rates and reactivation.
Gateway fees matter less than failed payment recovery. Set up dunning early.
Self-serve refunds cut chargebacks for me. People just want a simple path.
Dunning and pause saved my margin
Run a simple model: blended CAC by channel, gateway fees, refund rate, chargebacks, dunning recovery, and support minutes per ticket. Then compare to store net after fees. Most teams forget recovery. If your dunning recovers even 10 to 15 percent of failed charges, the web flow usually wins. Add a clear refund policy and a one-click cancel or pause to cut disputes. Keep entitlement sync instant to avoid angry tickets.
We only saw gains after dunning and card updater tools.
Self-serve cancel reduced tickets and complaints a lot.