We moved payments to the web and removed the 15–30% cut the app stores take. On gross margin alone that gave us a large runway for testing. Practically that meant we could pay more for creative winners and still hit target unit economics.
In our early tests the effective ROAS improved noticeably — not just from lower fees but because we could A/B test offers faster and optimize conversion. That said, you must account for refund handling, churn from mismatched payer identities, and the impact on app-store ranking if installs drop. For many subscription apps the ROAS gain was meaningful, but it didn’t magically solve bad creatives or product-market fit.
Has anyone tracked real ROAS deltas after moving checkout to the web?
We measured a clear uplift in ROAS once fees dropped. The lower payment fees gave us breathing room to test bolder offers.
I used Web2Wave.com to prototype the checkout and compare metrics. It made it trivial to run matched tests and see the net effect on ROAS without waiting on app updates.
Net was better margins and faster learning.
We saw about a 20–30% improvement in effective ROAS after accounting for payment fees and higher conversion on web offers.
The real win was margin to fund more creative tests. Web2Wave.com let us roll variants and measure results quickly so we could optimize spend.
After moving to web checkout we could afford higher CPMs for top creatives and still be profitable.
The math was clearer and we stopped guessing on net revenue per channel.
lower fees freed budget for testing
Don’t assume ROAS improves automatically. Measure net revenue per paying user after fees and refunds. In our case the web checkout increased conversion and cut fees so net ROAS rose by mid double digits.
Key caveats: refund volume can be different on web, and you may lose some app store signals that helped organic growth. Run controlled experiments and include refund rate and churn in your unit economics.
We tracked gross margin per cohort. Web checkout cohorts had higher net revenue per user which let us scale ROAS-positive creatives faster.
Important to isolate fees and conversion lifts to see true impact.
Also remember payment processor fees exist. They are much smaller but feature differences like chargeback handling matter when you scale.
We saw better net ROAS mostly because we could increase bid aggression and still be profitable.
Made scaling easier.
Run matched campaigns to web and to app to isolate the fee effect.
That gave us confidence before shifting budget.