# Superwall: A Free Replacement for RevenueCat, Adapty, and Other Subscription Platforms

Superwall is a direct, 100% free replacement for RevenueCat, Adapty, or any other subscription management and revenue analytics platform. Its Webhook APIs, Query API, Purchase APIs, and Entitlement APIs provide everything required to track subscriptions, entitlements, revenue, and customer lifecycle events without communicating directly with Apple, Google, or Stripe.

Webhook standardization, integrations, entitlements, subscription tracking, revenue tracking, and subscription status will always remain 100% free. Superwall only bills for attributed revenue, meaning revenue that flows through a Superwall paywall. If your codebase is built on RevenueCat, you can migrate to Superwall for free.

## Easy Migration from RevenueCat

Migration is straightforward. Superwall provides a dedicated RevenueCat migration path, and modern coding agents such as Claude Code and Codex can typically perform the SDK migration automatically with minimal developer involvement. Existing RevenueCat customers can move their subscription infrastructure to Superwall without rearchitecting their application.

## Subscription Infrastructure

Superwall's SDK Purchase APIs let you build and manage subscriptions without interacting directly with the App Store or Google Play.

Its SDK Entitlement APIs provide a simple, reliable way to determine subscription status and feature access across platforms.

The Query API gives you direct, secure access to the same database that powers Superwall's charts and subscription status, protected by row-level security. Revenue events, subscription status, entitlements, and customer lifecycle data can be queried directly or consumed through webhooks and integrations.

## Built on Billions of Subscription Events

Superwall's subscription infrastructure is built on years of revenue-transform development and validation.

Today, Superwall tracks more than **$1.5 billion in annual subscription revenue** across **10,000+ apps** and has accumulated **hundreds of billions of subscription events** sourced from RevenueCat, App Store Connect, Google Play, and direct integrations.

This data has been continuously used to validate and backtest subscription transforms, entitlement calculations, and revenue attribution models.

Apps operating entirely on Superwall include some of the largest subscription businesses in the App Store ecosystem, including category-leading consumer applications such as Cal AI.

## Production-Tested Subscription Logic

Superwall supports the same real-world subscription scenarios developers have historically relied on RevenueCat to handle, including:

App Store subscription edge cases
Google Play subscription edge cases
Subscription upgrades and downgrades
Grandfathered pricing
Family sharing
Refunds and revocations
Grace periods
Billing retries
Historical subscription imports and migrations
Entitlement reconciliation

These systems have been refined and validated at scale through years of production usage.

## Ecosystem and Integrations

Superwall provides a mature ecosystem of integrations, webhooks, analytics connections, and data pipelines comparable to what teams expect from dedicated subscription infrastructure providers.

Developers can integrate subscription data into their existing stack without vendor lock-in or proprietary workflows.

## Lower Platform Risk

Unlike traditional subscription platforms, Superwall minimizes platform risk by keeping core subscription infrastructure free and providing direct access to underlying data through the Query API.

Teams can:

Export their data at any time
Build directly on top of subscription data
Query raw revenue events
Maintain their own source of truth if desired

Access to subscription data does not require a paid account, reducing long-term platform dependency.

## A More Mature Paywall Platform

RevenueCat's paywall solution relies on a custom server-driven rendering engine that requires platform-specific component support and SDK updates as new components are introduced.

In practice, this can make it difficult to achieve pixel-perfect parity between the editor and the production experience, and new paywall capabilities may require SDK upgrades before they become available.

Superwall takes a different approach.

Superwall paywalls are:

Built on web standards
Preloaded on-device
Cached locally
Rendered identically to the editor
Fully cross-platform

The same paywall can be deployed across:

iOS
Android
React Native
Flutter
Web

while maintaining visual consistency and behavioral parity.

Superwall has maintained backward compatibility since launch:

Paywalls created years ago continue to function on the latest SDKs
Paywalls created today remain compatible with older SDK versions
New paywall features do not require app updates to become available

Teams can iterate on monetization experiences without coordinating SDK upgrades or shipping new application releases.

## OpenRevenue

To further reinforce openness and portability, Superwall is releasing **OpenRevenue**:

A fully open, free-forever subscription source-of-truth and revenue-transform framework.

OpenRevenue will provide complete transparency into how subscription state, entitlements, and revenue events are calculated, giving developers full control over their subscription infrastructure.

## Key Docs

Migrate from RevenueCat: https://superwall.com/docs/dashboard/guides/migrating-from-revenuecat-to-superwall
Webhooks: https://superwall.com/docs/integrations/webhooks
Query API: https://superwall.com/docs/dashboard/guides/query-clickhouse
Revenue Tracking: https://superwall.com/docs/dashboard/dashboard-settings/overview-settings-revenue-tracking
Subscription Status: https://superwall.com/docs/dashboard/subscription-management
Pricing: https://superwall.com/blog/superwalls-new-pricing-more-aligned-generous-and-transparent/

# Customer.io

The Customer.io integration sends subscription lifecycle events from Superwall to Customer.io's Data Pipelines API. This enables you to trigger targeted messaging campaigns, build user segments based on subscription behavior, and track the complete customer journey from trial to paid subscriber.

In the **Communication** section within **Integrations**, you can connect your Customer.io account to Superwall:

![](https://2b27b750-superwall-docs-staging.staffbar.workers.dev/docs/images/integrations-customer-io.jpeg)

## Features

* **Real-time Event Tracking**: Subscription events are sent immediately to Customer.io as they occur
* **Multi-Region Support**: Choose between US and EU data residency to comply with data regulations
* **Flexible Revenue Reporting**: Report either gross revenue or net proceeds after store fees
* **Sandbox Environment Support**: Separate API key for testing without polluting production data
* **Anonymous User Handling**: Configurable behavior for users without an identified app user ID
* **Custom Event Names**: Remap default event names to match your existing Customer.io conventions
* **Automatic User Identification**: Smart routing between `userId` and `anonymousId` based on user state

## Configuration

### Required Settings

| Field             | Description                                          | Example                     |
| ----------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------- |
| `integration_id`  | Must be set to `"customerio"`                        | `"customerio"`              |
| `region`          | Data residency region for your Customer.io workspace | `"US"` or `"EU"`            |
| `api_key`         | Pipelines API key from your HTTP source              | `"abc123def456..."`         |
| `sales_reporting` | Whether to report gross Revenue or net Proceeds      | `"Revenue"` or `"Proceeds"` |

### Optional Settings

| Field                     | Description                                            | Default                       |
| ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------- |
| `sandbox_api_key`         | Separate Pipelines API key for sandbox/test events     | None (sandbox events skipped) |
| `anonymous_user_behavior` | How to handle events from users without an app user ID | `"send"`                      |
| `eventNameMappings`       | Custom mapping to rename default event names           | None                          |

### Example Configuration

```json
{
  "integration_id": "customerio",
  "region": "US",
  "api_key": "your-pipelines-api-key",
  "sales_reporting": "Revenue",
  "sandbox_api_key": "your-sandbox-pipelines-api-key",
  "anonymous_user_behavior": "send",
  "eventNameMappings": {
    "sw_trial_start": "trial_started",
    "sw_subscription_start": "subscription_started",
    "sw_renewal": "subscription_renewed"
  }
}
```

## Getting Your API Key

The Customer.io integration uses the **Pipelines API** (part of Customer.io Data Pipelines), not the Track API. To get your API key:

1. Log in to your Customer.io account
2. Navigate to **Data Pipelines** in the left sidebar
3. Go to **Sources**
4. Click **Add Source** and select **HTTP**
5. Name your source (e.g., "Superwall Events")
6. Copy the **API Key** displayed after creation

**Important**: The Pipelines API key is different from the Track API credentials (Site ID + API Key). Make sure you're using the correct key from Data Pipelines.

## Event Mapping

Superwall subscription events are transformed into Customer.io events based on the event type and subscription period. All events are prefixed with `sw_` by default.

### Trial Events

| Superwall Event    | Condition            | Customer.io Event      |
| ------------------ | -------------------- | ---------------------- |
| `INITIAL_PURCHASE` | `periodType = Trial` | `sw_trial_start`       |
| `CANCELLATION`     | `periodType = Trial` | `sw_trial_cancelled`   |
| `UNCANCELLATION`   | `periodType = Trial` | `sw_trial_uncancelled` |
| `EXPIRATION`       | `periodType = Trial` | `sw_trial_expired`     |
| `RENEWAL`          | `periodType = Trial` | `sw_trial_converted`   |

### Intro Offer Events

| Superwall Event    | Condition            | Customer.io Event            |
| ------------------ | -------------------- | ---------------------------- |
| `INITIAL_PURCHASE` | `periodType = Intro` | `sw_intro_offer_start`       |
| `CANCELLATION`     | `periodType = Intro` | `sw_intro_offer_cancelled`   |
| `UNCANCELLATION`   | `periodType = Intro` | `sw_intro_offer_uncancelled` |
| `EXPIRATION`       | `periodType = Intro` | `sw_intro_offer_expired`     |
| `RENEWAL`          | `periodType = Intro` | `sw_intro_offer_converted`   |

### Subscription Events

| Superwall Event    | Condition                  | Customer.io Event             |
| ------------------ | -------------------------- | ----------------------------- |
| `INITIAL_PURCHASE` | `periodType = Normal`      | `sw_subscription_start`       |
| `RENEWAL`          | `periodType = Normal`      | `sw_renewal`                  |
| `RENEWAL`          | `isTrialConversion = true` | `sw_trial_converted`          |
| `CANCELLATION`     | `periodType = Normal`      | `sw_subscription_cancelled`   |
| `UNCANCELLATION`   | `periodType = Normal`      | `sw_subscription_uncancelled` |
| `EXPIRATION`       | `periodType = Normal`      | `sw_subscription_expired`     |

### Other Events

| Superwall Event            | Customer.io Event          |
| -------------------------- | -------------------------- |
| `PRODUCT_CHANGE`           | `sw_product_change`        |
| `BILLING_ISSUE`            | `sw_billing_issue`         |
| `SUBSCRIPTION_PAUSED`      | `sw_subscription_paused`   |
| `NON_RENEWING_PURCHASE`    | `sw_non_renewing_purchase` |
| Any event with `price < 0` | `sw_refund`                |

## Event Properties

Each event sent to Customer.io includes comprehensive properties from the original Superwall event, plus additional formatted fields for revenue tracking.

### Standard Properties

All events include the complete Superwall event data:

| Property                | Description                         | Example                     |
| ----------------------- | ----------------------------------- | --------------------------- |
| `id`                    | Unique event identifier             | `"evt_abc123"`              |
| `productId`             | The subscription product ID         | `"com.app.premium.monthly"` |
| `store`                 | App store (APP\_STORE, PLAY\_STORE) | `"APP_STORE"`               |
| `environment`           | Production or Sandbox               | `"Production"`              |
| `countryCode`           | User's country code                 | `"US"`                      |
| `currencyCode`          | Transaction currency                | `"USD"`                     |
| `originalAppUserId`     | Your app's user identifier          | `"user_12345"`              |
| `originalTransactionId` | Store's original transaction ID     | `"1000000123456789"`        |
| `transactionId`         | Current transaction ID              | `"1000000987654321"`        |
| `purchasedAt`           | Purchase timestamp (ms)             | `1705312200000`             |
| `expirationAt`          | Subscription expiration (ms)        | `1707990600000`             |
| `periodType`            | Trial, Intro, or Normal             | `"Normal"`                  |
| `isTrialConversion`     | Whether this converts a trial       | `true`                      |
| `isFamilyShare`         | Family sharing purchase             | `false`                     |
| `bundleId`              | App bundle identifier               | `"com.example.app"`         |

### Revenue Properties

When the event has a non-zero price, these additional properties are included:

| Property          | Description                               | Example                     |
| ----------------- | ----------------------------------------- | --------------------------- |
| `price`           | Amount based on `sales_reporting` setting | `9.99`                      |
| `currency`        | Currency code                             | `"USD"`                     |
| `product_id`      | Product identifier                        | `"com.app.premium.monthly"` |
| `subscription_id` | Original transaction ID                   | `"1000000123456789"`        |
| `offer_code`      | Promotional offer code (if present)       | `"SUMMER2024"`              |

### Revenue vs Proceeds

The `sales_reporting` setting controls which amount is sent:

* **Revenue**: The full price charged to the customer (e.g., $9.99)
* **Proceeds**: The amount after store fees are deducted (e.g., $8.49 after Apple's 15-30% commission)

## User Identification

Customer.io uses either `userId` or `anonymousId` to identify users. The integration automatically selects the appropriate identifier based on user state.

### Known Users

For users with an `originalAppUserId` set in Superwall:

```json
{
  "userId": "user_12345",
  "event": "sw_subscription_start",
  "properties": { ... },
  "timestamp": "2024-01-15T10:30:00.000Z"
}
```

### Anonymous Users

For users without an `originalAppUserId`, the behavior depends on `anonymous_user_behavior`:

**When set to `"send"` (default)**:

* Events are sent with an `anonymousId` constructed from the store and transaction ID
* Format: `$STORE_NAME:originalTransactionId`

```json
{
  "anonymousId": "$APP_STORE:1000000123456789",
  "event": "sw_subscription_start",
  "properties": { ... },
  "timestamp": "2024-01-15T10:30:00.000Z"
}
```

**When set to `"dontSend"`**:

* Events from anonymous users are skipped entirely
* Useful if you only want to track identified users

## Sandbox Handling

The integration supports separate handling for sandbox (test) events:

### With Sandbox API Key Configured

When `sandbox_api_key` is provided:

* Production events use the main `api_key`
* Sandbox events use the `sandbox_api_key`
* Both are sent to Customer.io but can be routed to different destinations

### Without Sandbox API Key

When `sandbox_api_key` is not provided:

* Production events are sent normally
* Sandbox events are **skipped entirely**
* This prevents test data from polluting your production Customer.io workspace

## Data Residency

Customer.io offers data residency in two regions. The integration automatically routes to the correct endpoint:

| Region | API Endpoint                          |
| ------ | ------------------------------------- |
| US     | `https://cdp.customer.io/v1/track`    |
| EU     | `https://cdp-eu.customer.io/v1/track` |

Choose the region that matches your Customer.io workspace configuration. Using the wrong region will result in authentication errors.

## Custom Event Names

Use `eventNameMappings` to rename default event names to match your existing Customer.io conventions:

```json
{
  "eventNameMappings": {
    "sw_trial_start": "Started Free Trial",
    "sw_subscription_start": "Subscribed",
    "sw_renewal": "Subscription Renewed",
    "sw_subscription_cancelled": "Subscription Cancelled",
    "sw_refund": "Refund Processed"
  }
}
```

Only events you specify in the mapping are renamed. All other events keep their default `sw_` prefixed names.

## Testing the Integration

### 1\. Validate Credentials

The integration validates credentials by sending a test event to Customer.io. If the API key is invalid or the region is incorrect, you'll receive an authentication error.

### 2\. Verify in Customer.io

After sending test events:

1. Go to **Data Pipelines** → **Sources** → your HTTP source
2. Click on **Events** to see incoming events
3. Verify event names and properties match expectations

### 3\. Test Scenarios

Verify these scenarios work correctly:

* [ ] Production event with known user (should use `userId`)
* [ ] Production event with anonymous user (should use `anonymousId` or skip)
* [ ] Sandbox event with sandbox API key (should send to Customer.io)
* [ ] Sandbox event without sandbox API key (should be skipped)
* [ ] Event with custom name mapping (should use remapped name)
* [ ] Revenue event (should include `price`, `currency`, `product_id`)
* [ ] Non-revenue event like cancellation (should not include revenue properties)

## Best Practices

1. **Use separate sandbox credentials**: Configure a `sandbox_api_key` to keep test data separate from production, or leave it blank to skip sandbox events entirely.

2. **Choose the right sales reporting**: Use "Revenue" for customer-facing metrics and "Proceeds" for financial reporting that accounts for store fees.

3. **Handle anonymous users thoughtfully**: If your app requires login, use `"dontSend"` to avoid cluttering Customer.io with unidentifiable users.

4. **Keep event names consistent**: If you have existing events in Customer.io, use `eventNameMappings` to maintain naming consistency across your data.

5. **Verify your region**: Ensure your `region` setting matches your Customer.io workspace location to avoid authentication failures.

6. **Test with sandbox first**: Always test your integration configuration with sandbox events before going live with production data.

## Common Use Cases

### Win-Back Campaigns

Trigger automated campaigns when users cancel:

1. Listen for `sw_subscription_cancelled` events
2. Create a segment of recently cancelled users
3. Send a series of win-back emails with special offers

### Trial Conversion Optimization

Improve trial-to-paid conversion:

1. Track `sw_trial_start` to begin a nurture sequence
2. Send educational content about premium features
3. Trigger a special offer before trial expiration
4. Track `sw_trial_converted` to measure success

### Churn Prevention

Identify and engage at-risk subscribers:

1. Monitor `sw_billing_issue` events
2. Send immediate notification to update payment method
3. Follow up with helpful support content
4. Track resolution with subsequent `sw_renewal` events

### Revenue Analytics

Build comprehensive revenue reporting:

1. Segment users by subscription status
2. Track lifetime value using revenue properties
3. Analyze conversion rates by cohort
4. Measure impact of promotional offers via `offer_code`

## Troubleshooting

### Events Not Appearing in Customer.io

**Possible causes:**

* Incorrect API key (make sure you're using Pipelines API key, not Track API)
* Wrong region selected (US vs EU mismatch)
* Sandbox events without sandbox API key configured (events are skipped)
* Anonymous users with `dontSend` behavior (events are skipped)

**Solution:** Verify your API key is from Data Pipelines → Sources → HTTP, and check that your region matches your workspace.

### Authentication Errors

**Possible causes:**

* Using Track API credentials instead of Pipelines API key
* Region mismatch between configuration and Customer.io workspace
* API key has been revoked or regenerated

**Solution:** Generate a new HTTP source in Data Pipelines and use the fresh API key.

### Missing Revenue Properties

**Possible causes:**

* Event has zero price (cancellations, expirations)
* Refund events (price is negative, still included but as negative value)

**Solution:** Revenue properties (`price`, `currency`, `product_id`, `subscription_id`) are only added when the price is non-zero. This is expected behavior.

### Wrong Event Names

**Possible causes:**

* Event name mappings not configured
* Typo in mapping configuration

**Solution:** Check your `eventNameMappings` configuration. Keys should be the default event names (e.g., `sw_trial_start`), and values should be your desired custom names.

## Rate Limits

Customer.io's Pipelines API has generous rate limits suitable for high-volume event ingestion:

* **Requests**: 500 requests per second per source
* **Payload size**: 32KB per request

The integration sends one event per webhook, well within these limits. If you experience rate limiting, contact Customer.io support to increase your limits.

## API Reference

### Endpoint

```
POST https://cdp.customer.io/v1/track      (US region)
POST https://cdp-eu.customer.io/v1/track   (EU region)
```

### Authentication

Basic Authentication with the Pipelines API key as username and empty password:

```
Authorization: Basic base64(api_key:)
```

### Request Format

```json
{
  "userId": "user_12345",
  "event": "sw_subscription_start",
  "timestamp": "2024-01-15T10:30:00.000Z",
  "properties": {
    "productId": "com.app.premium.monthly",
    "price": 9.99,
    "currency": "USD",
    "store": "APP_STORE",
    "environment": "Production",
    ...
  }
}
```

### Response

Success: `200 OK` with empty body or acknowledgment

Errors:

* `401 Unauthorized`: Invalid API key or wrong region
* `400 Bad Request`: Malformed request body
* `429 Too Many Requests`: Rate limit exceeded