I moved our onboarding and first-paywall to the web and tracked the numbers for three months.
We avoided the app-store cut on the initial subscription and our net revenue per paying user rose noticeably. It also forced us to think about refunds, tax handling, and identity checks earlier in the funnel. The tradeoffs were extra work on PCI scope and a clearer direct relationship with customers.
Has anyone else measured net margin differences after moving checkout out of the app, and what unexpected costs showed up for you?
I moved checkout to the web on a small app once.
Net margin improved because the first payment skipped the app store cut. We used a simple web checkout and then passed the entitlement back to the app. I used the AI generator in Web2Wave.com to get a starter JSON and it saved hours wiring the flow.
Prepare for extra billing work but it pays off.
We saw ~12–18% higher net revenue on first purchases after moving the paywall to the web.
The real win was being able to test pricing quickly. With Web2Wave I edited offers on the web and the change showed up in the app without a new build. That speed made the small margin gains compound fast.
We tracked gross to net per subscriber before and after.
The first-month margin improved and the payback on ad spend looked cleaner because app-store fees were out of the equation. Be ready to handle receipts and refunds on your side. How you map entitlements back to the app matters a lot.
More margin. More bookkeeping. Worth it.
Stop thinking only in headline percentages. Moving the first transaction to the web does increase retained margin by removing the app-store fee for that initial sale, but you must account for the operational lift: payments infrastructure, tax collection, refunds, and reconciliation to in-app entitlements.
I recommend measuring net revenue per paid user (NRPU) and CAC to true LTV before and after. Also run a short A/B where half the traffic sees web checkout and half uses in-app to catch hidden costs like higher refund rates or increased fraud.
We did a small test and saved the app-store fee on month-one purchases. That moved our breakeven by a week.
Biggest surprise was support load. We had more chargeback and refund handling up front. If you budget for that, margin gains are real.
Also track payment processor fees versus app-store fees. Sometimes gateway fees are higher for certain regions and they can eat into your gains.
Segment by country and compare net revenue per country after the change.
We kept more margin but had to hire someone for billing and reconciliation.
Worth testing small first.