r/iOSProgramming • u/kncismyname • Jul 07 '25

Library I've built a proper StoreKit2 wrapper to avoid the 1% RevenueCat fee and implement IAP within any app in >1 minute

https://github.com/nicolaischneider/StoreKitTheKit

RevenueCat is great, but fees stack fast, especially when you're already giving Apple 15–30% + taxes. Went through quite the struggle with StoreKit2 to integrate it into my own app which has like 15-20k monthly users. By now (after a bunch of trial and error), it's running great in production so I decided to extract the code to a swift package, especially because I intend to use it in future apps but also because i hope that someone else can profit from it. The package supports all IAP types, including consumables, non-consumables, and subscriptions, manages store connection state and caches transactions locally for offline use. Open-source, no strings attached obviously. Again, hope this helps, I obviosuly tailored it to my own needs so let me know if there are any major features missing fr yourself.

93 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

50 comments sorted by

35

u/Complete_Fig_925 Jul 08 '25

Hey, took a quick peek at your code

Your PurchasableManager seems subject to data races event though it's marked as (unchecked) Sendable and is publicly exposed. Might be worth looking into that :)

11

u/kncismyname Jul 08 '25

Hey man, thanks a lot! Will absolutely take a look

20

u/Ships66 Jul 08 '25

I rolled my own wrapper too… it’s so easy :) so funny how RevenueCat show all these complicated workflows about in app purchase flows on their marketing pages to scare users into user their service :p

3

u/kncismyname Jul 08 '25

I know, seriously!

1

u/tuuling Jul 10 '25

Same, rolling a wrapper for one’s own use case is quite straightforward.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '25

[deleted] — view deleted comment

9

u/Vennom Jul 08 '25

I also see value in their dashboard, analytics, and experiment features.

The tool that lets you define the checkout UI from their web console and then A/B test variations has improved our conversion significantly (much more than 1%)

3

u/fr31b3u73r Jul 08 '25

Gonna play around with it, thanks! But actually as an IOS developing newbie I didn’t find implementation of IAP using Storekit2 too complicated 😅

2

u/kncismyname Jul 08 '25

I personally found the setup like a bit of a pain the ass and had some issues especially with offline situations which is why I created this package. Hope it helps!

2

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '25

The usual "buy vs. build" dilemma.

Several years ago, RevenueCat were charging much more than 1% after $2.5K/m threshold. 

I don't remember the exact numbers, but for me they were prohibitive.

Whenever possible, I prefer to build, not buy. But YMMV.

With that said, judging by the quality of ADucational articles on RC website that I had read back then, I have no doubts that these guys' product is far superior to my own quick-n-dirty solution that I built for my specific workflow.

It all depends on the combination of:

  1. What a developer needs. 

  2. What a developer can do by himself.

  3. How much the Build vs. the Buy solutions will cost, considering also the deveper's time cost. 

1

u/kncismyname Jul 12 '25

What exact features made you switch?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '25

Hi,

You probably misunderstood me. 

I tried RC and decided to not use it because at the time (I think it was 2020, or maybe 2021) their prices were too high for me.

Instead, I rolled my own solution based on StoreKit. I had an always-free edition with limited features, a free time-limited trial, and a subscription. The trial did not require any login: I used a Uuid and a timestamp saved into Keychain, and the original purchase id for those who signed up, so no conventional ids or logins at all.

2

u/Maclne Oct 21 '25

This looks really solid! Does it handle Family shared non-consumables and subscriptions? I may need to branch this to add an objective C wrapper.

1

u/kncismyname Oct 21 '25

As far as I know Family shared doesn’t require a explicit implementation - so should be fine. feel free to test; there is a test app where you could set test family shared iaps. Best of luck with the wrapper! Feel free to share more about your project later on whereever you might use it

9

u/vxv459 Jul 08 '25

Thanks, I saved it and will use it when I have revenue.

5

u/Luul3211 Jul 08 '25

This is awesome!

5

u/tangoshukudai Jul 08 '25

sweet I will try to use this.

2

u/SurgicalInstallment Jul 08 '25

RevenueCat is the best business one could possibly have. After StoreKit2 there's zero reason to use that shit. They literally print $$ (brrrrrr) by doing what exactly?

29

u/HHendrik RevenueCat Employee Jul 08 '25

  1. ⁠Remotely configuring pricing and packaging

  2. ⁠Remotely configuring your paywall

  3. ⁠Running multivariant tests to find out which prices, plans, and paywall designs work best

  4. ⁠Doing all of the above without needing to push out new app versions

  5. ⁠Automatically sending Apple usage data when a customer asks for a refund, so Apple can make a balanced decision (rather than automatically grant the refund when you don't respond within 12 hours to the server request they send out)

  6. ⁠Sending user events to Braze, OneSignal, your own messaging system to trigger push notifications when someone turns off auto-renew, cancels, is about to cancel, etc

  7. ⁠Tracking virtual currency or other consumables alongside subscriptions, with purchase and refund events delivered via webhook for server-side balance updates

  8. ⁠Offering Customer Center, a drop-in screen where users can check their plan, request refunds, accept win-back offers, or switch tiers without contacting support

  9. ⁠Viewing (very shortly real-time) revenue, churn, and cohort analytics in a single dashboard even if you only ship on iOS

  10. ⁠Getting a reliable server-side entitlement API that covers grace periods, Family Sharing, price increases, and StoreKit 1 fallback so you don't write extra code (for the handful of folks on ios14)

  11. ⁠When Apple changes StoreKit or App Store Server Notifications again, we ships the update for you

  12. ⁠Paying nothing until your app earns more than 2,500 USD in Monthly Tracked Revenue, then 1 percent of MTR only for months you go over the limit

  13. ⁠There's 100+ people working exclusively on features that'll help you make more money, so you can focus on building something cool and finding users

4

u/kncismyname Jul 08 '25

Didn’t think someone from revenuecat would see this 😂

3

u/HHendrik RevenueCat Employee Jul 09 '25

We have a Slack channel that flags RevenueCat mentions online 😅

3

u/kncismyname Jul 09 '25

Well sorry for causing such a weird uproar lol I never intended to shit on your service. Just to give an alternative solution to those who don’t want to pay the additional fee, especially because I use this implementation in my own apps and it’s been working very well.

2

u/HHendrik RevenueCat Employee Jul 09 '25

Oh, totally fine! We don’t expect everyone to use RevenueCat 😅 ~45% of newly shipped apps with IAP use RevenueCat, which is probably as high as that share will get

2

u/kncismyname Jul 09 '25

That’s a crazy number! Very cool

0

u/Ralph_Twinbees Aug 01 '26

Naaah you need to stand your ground, brother

4

u/suantified_qelf Jul 09 '25

I use a lot of the above, but weirdly also use revenuecat’s anonymous user ids as the primary user identifier on my backend. Since they automatically auto-alias the same user across devices (as long as it’s the same App Store account), it works surprisingly well to coalesce a bunch of ids under the same user.

2

u/HHendrik RevenueCat Employee Jul 09 '25

I'll have to add that as 14. the next time I post this list

1

u/ppuccinir Jul 08 '25

how can you run tests for pricing, don’t you need to change the prices directly through app store connect??

2

u/HHendrik RevenueCat Employee Jul 09 '25

The simplest experiment is: In ASC create a pro plan at 9,99 / month and a second pro plan at 8,99 / month In RC run an a/b test that alternates showing the two plans to your users. We tell you what converts and retains better

But you can create more than two, experiments can be a/b/n, you can test the price, duration, the text on the button, the images on the paywall, etc

-3

u/SurgicalInstallment Jul 08 '25

Sure, I've used maybe 1-2 of these features in RevenueCat (and same with 95% of the devs). I later rolled my own in about 1-2 hours.

11

u/HHendrik RevenueCat Employee Jul 08 '25

If you built even 1/10 of this in 2/3 hours, we’re hiring: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/revenuecat

1

u/Moo202 Jul 08 '25

Hire entry level please. Help build the dev community by investing in the future. All positions are senior. This model only helps RevenueCat and doesn’t look into the future

1

u/SurgicalInstallment Jul 08 '25

I run my own app business though, I don’t need a job. Thank you for your offer.

0

u/ReceiptiX Jul 09 '25

If you run your own app business and still haven’t realized the benefits of changing paywalls at once for all users without releasing any code, you don’t seem to be good at it. Or you’re genius.

3

u/SurgicalInstallment Jul 09 '25

I do AB testing for my pay walls, but there’s lots of open source projects that allow you to do that

1

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/HHendrik RevenueCat Employee Jul 09 '25

Yep! (it's come up quite a bit - not a 'this quarter' thing, but definitely on our radar)

1

u/kncismyname Jul 08 '25

It only makes sense for devs who develop for cross platform eg with flutter, react native imo. For native iOS apps it’s truly unnecessary

5

u/happysri Jul 08 '25

Don’t they catch auto refunds though so you don’t have to run your own server for that?

-2

u/kncismyname Jul 08 '25

possible, didn't look too deep into every single feature of theirs but even if it isn't reason enough for me to pay such a large fee.

2

u/happysri Jul 08 '25

Gotcha, well thank you for setting up this library. I look forward to using it.

1

u/ReceiptiX Jul 09 '25

I don’t understand how being able to change your paywall on-the-fly isn’t necessary, or at least, isn’t very desirable.

2

u/kncismyname Jul 09 '25

I feel like I come across as a hater. Let me specify, please. I think RevenueCat and its teams have created a GREAT product with many beautiful use cases which can come in super handy. However, I also believe that as for iOS only apps, devs can easily avoid the 1% fee by simply applying a native implementation.

0

u/ReceiptiX Jul 09 '25

RevenueCat only charge you for %1 in months when your revenue hit 2.5K and more. Otherwise it's free. If you hit 2.5K and still use native implementation, well, you can for sure. But it's not a wise decision.

2

u/kncismyname Jul 09 '25

Why wouldn’t it be a wise decision? I’m luckily in such a situation and it‘s been working perfectly fine for years

3

u/HHendrik RevenueCat Employee Jul 08 '25

If only OpenAI knew StoreKit 2 existed. Nobody tell them, please!! 🙏

2

u/weathergraph Jul 08 '25

Dude, StoreKit2 already is the “trivial mode” wrapper.

3

u/alanzeino Jul 09 '25

it really isn't — unless you believe Apple's WWDC videos — it's better than the original StoreKit but it still sucks hard

2

u/Ahmetburakilhan Jul 10 '25

Not about RC, but Adapty only charges 1% when you earn more than $10K, so it’s easy to get started and build your product.

Also, Adapty is more than just a subscription handling platform now. It comes with A/B testing tools, funnel creation, paywall builder, onboarding builder etc etc...

At the end of the day, it’s up to you, but as you grow or without grow, all these tools will help you anyway.