FreemiumKit and RevenueCat
FreemiumKit is the ultimate solution for Apple platform developers to integrate and manage in-app purchases and subscriptions effortlessly. With support for all Apple platforms, FreemiumKit provides a seamless and efficient way to handle your app’s monetization.
They have a comparison table vs. RevenueCat, which I’ve heard consistently great things about. Currently, it’s free, with a proposed monthly fee based on income.
The last time I looked at RevenueCat, I think it was free up to $10K in monthly revenue. Currently, it looks like the cutoff has been reduced to $2.5K/month, beyond which they take 1%. They say this is “tracked revenue,” which I take to mean it includes Apple’s cut, even though they say “only in months where you make more than $2.5k.” So for the App Store Small Business Program the threshold would be less than $2,125/month in pay to the developer (since VAT is removed, too). Maybe 1% is reasonable for what they offer, but whereas before it seemed like a no-brainer to start with their SDK, now I would be inclined to look more closely at what it offers over StoreKit 2.
Switching to FreemiumKit had an incredible impact on my development process. I was able to clean up a significant amount of code, removing extra classes and unnecessary complexity that RevenueCat required. This cleanup wasn’t just about aesthetics—it made my app more efficient and easier to manage.
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Built-in SDK components like
PaidFeatureViewandPaidStatusViewwere incredibly customizable, allowing me to focus on the user experience without worrying about the technical nitty-gritty. Instead of having to write an entire ViewModel for handling in-app purchases, I could use a one-liner from FreemiumKit. This freed me to concentrate on what mattered most: building a great app.
Previously:
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For my case, I'm always cautious in adopting a third party SDK when there is an Apple native solution (for at least a lot of the functionality), especially when it gets between yourself and payments. Understand that using Apple's solution may take more time but Apple already takes a large % commission on sales – do you really want to pay another company even more of your sales %?
The revenue share may be reasonable at this early stage, however once you've done the work to integrate and rely on FreemiumKit, is there much to stop them from increasing the cut? By then you'll be dependent and less likely to migrate away.
@Matthew Good advice. I would like to see more written about how hard it is to migrate away from these solutions if necessary, either due to the cost or to the service being discontinued. My impression is that in the early days the Apple API was much harder to use and so it was more advantageous to use one of these services when starting out, so that you could focus on the app itself. In other words, avoid premature optimization when you don’t yet know whether your business will even work.
Anyone has negative experience from customers (complain in reviews etc) when using RevenueCat/FreemiumKit? Those using Little Snitch - if they deny the app stops working. Or should I expect users are smart not to deny these outgoing connections?
@Marek I have been using RevenueCat in a couple apps for about 3 years, and especially one on macOS targets the kind of Users who often have LiLu or Little Snitch installed, but so far I have never received a complaint.
While it's true that a User should allow connections to the revenue cat.com domain in LittleSnitch rules, if they don't they then cannot complete a transaction, so in theory – and in my experience in practice – it would be pretty self-explanatory to Users who are advanced enough to install such network monitoring apps.
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I am very happy with RevenueCat at I don't think their pricing is unreasonable; actually for an indie is more likely to remain free longer than FreemiumKit. But RevenueCat implementation on SwiftUI is not exposed in their documentation and is basically confined in a sample app and [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLVUGYFkL3Q), and it looks quite convoluted.
I'm in the process of adding IAPs to a new app and since I've yet to start, after seeing the SwiftUI implementation I am seriously considering to go the StoreKit 2 native way, even though is Cocoa and UIKit apps I am happy with their service. I'd miss the purchase notifications though, which is silly but some days is just nice to see that someone bought your app.
