Superwall vs RevenueCat: which paywall stack for Expo in 2026

Superwall vs RevenueCat shows up the moment you ship a subscription in an Expo app and realize the hard part is not StoreKit or Play Billing. It is paywalls: copy, layout, trials, localization, and experiments you want to change without waiting on App Review. Both vendors sit on top of native in-app purchase. They are not payment processors. Apple and Google still take the sale.

This guide compares them as of 30 October 2026, checked against RevenueCat and Superwall docs and pricing pages. It also maps to how TurboStarter Core wires mobile billing: RevenueCat by default, Superwall as a documented swap behind the same @workspace/billing-mobile API.

What RevenueCat and Superwall actually are

RevenueCat is a subscription and entitlement platform over store billing. You connect App Store Connect and Google Play, map products to entitlements, and use the SDK or REST API to answer "does this user have pro?" RevenueCat validates receipts, handles renewals and restores, sends webhooks, and aggregates revenue in one place. RevenueCat Paywalls add a native, remotely configured paywall editor tied to Offerings and Experiments, so you can change layout and copy without an app release when you ship the UI SDK.

Superwall is a monetization layer focused on paywall presentation and experimentation. Its dashboard is built around paywalls, campaigns, audiences, and templates. Purchases still run through Apple IAP and Google Play Billing. Superwall also ships subscription infrastructure (entitlements, purchase APIs, webhooks, SQL-style data access) that Superwall documents as free at any scale; the paid layer is the paywall product, billed on Monthly Attributed Revenue (MAR), meaning revenue that flowed through a Superwall-rendered paywall (Superwall pricing).

Neither replaces the stores. Both can reduce how much native billing code you maintain. They overlap on paywalls and analytics, but their default center of gravity differs: RevenueCat starts from subscriber truth; Superwall starts from conversion surfaces.

Superwall vs RevenueCat at a glance

Pricing: high level, no guesswork

Always read the live pages before you budget. Models change. The numbers below are what each vendor publishes today, not a quote for your account.

RevenueCat

• Core platform: Pay nothing up to $2,500 in monthly tracked revenue, then 1% of what you track once you pass that threshold.
• MTR counts subscription revenue RevenueCat tracks, measured before store fees and taxes (account management).
• Growth Tools: RevenueCat also offers paywalls and web-to-app funnels with a path to bring your own IAP infrastructure and pay on conversions from those tools only (pricing page). That matters if you compare "paywall-only" pricing across vendors.
• Enterprise: Custom volume pricing for large apps.

Superwall

Superwall splits pricing into two layers (pricing):

1. Subscription infrastructure (entitlements, purchase APIs, webhooks, query access): documented as free on every plan, with no MTR-style charge on all subscription revenue.
2. Paywall product: billed on MAR (revenue through a Superwall-rendered paywall). Indie is $0/mo with paywall features free up to $10k MAR, then 1% of total MAR. Startup ($49/mo + 1% MAR) and Scale ($199/mo + 1% MAR) add collaboration, localization, and operator features. Enterprise is custom flat-rate.

Practical tradeoff: if most revenue comes from paywalls you build yourself (or from web billing) and you only want Superwall for a slice of experiments, you may pay Superwall on MAR while keeping infrastructure features at $0. RevenueCat's 1% applies to tracked mobile (and optionally imported web) revenue once you exceed the free tier, regardless of which UI sold the subscription.

When to pick Superwall, RevenueCat, or both

Choose RevenueCat when

• You want one entitlement model across iOS, Android, and optionally RevenueCat Web.
• Your backend already expects RevenueCat webhooks and the REST API for server-side checks.
• You prefer Offerings + entitlements as the mental model, with paywalls as an add-on in the same project.
• You are following TurboStarter's default path and only need to flip env vars and dashboard setup (RevenueCat docs).

Choose Superwall when

• Paywall experiments are weekly, not quarterly: new creatives, placements, and audiences without shipping binaries.
• You want campaign-driven monetization (onboarding placement, feature gates, win-back surfaces) documented in Superwall's dashboard.
• Superwall pricing on MAR fits your mix: lots of legacy subscribers, web-bought users, or custom native paywalls, with only part of revenue flowing through Superwall paywalls.
• You will use TurboStarter's Superwall provider swap (Superwall docs) and the Expo Superwall starter template.

Use both when

• RevenueCat (or your database) remains source of truth for entitlements and server webhooks, while Superwall presents paywalls and runs experiments. Superwall documents integrations with existing stacks; validate the exact integration path in their docs before you commit.
• You are mid-migration: Superwall for presentation, RevenueCat for historical subscriber records until you cut over webhooks to one primary backend.

Avoid running two conflicting entitlement writers without a clear owner. Pick one system that updates your database and treat the other as UI-only or read-only.

Paywall experiments, remote config, and analytics

Remote config here means: marketing and product can change paywall copy, packages shown, and test variants from a dashboard, and the app SDK fetches the active configuration at runtime.

Honest analytics tradeoff: paywall tools measure conversion on the surface they control. Revenue from a user who subscribed elsewhere may not appear in paywall experiment reports. Align experiment KPIs with trial starts, purchases attributed to placement, and your own entitlement activation events from webhooks, not only dashboard revenue tiles.

Expo and React Native integration shape

Real Expo IAP flows need a development build. Store billing uses native modules; Expo Go is not enough for production purchase testing (same constraint as in RevenueCat vs Stripe).

RevenueCat on Expo

1. Add react-native-purchases (and UI package if you use RevenueCat Paywalls).
2. Configure with your public Apple and Google API keys and an App User ID that matches your backend user or organization id.
3. Present paywalls via react-native-purchases-ui or your own UI that calls Purchases.purchasePackage.
4. Point webhooks to your API; TurboStarter uses /api/billing/webhook/revenuecat with a shared secret.

TurboStarter's mobile kit wraps this in @workspace/billing-mobile hooks and server sync (overview).

Superwall on Expo

1. Follow Superwall's Expo documentation for SDK install and config plugin steps.
2. Set EXPO_PUBLIC_SUPERWALL_APPLE_API_KEY and EXPO_PUBLIC_SUPERWALL_GOOGLE_API_KEY as in TurboStarter Superwall setup.
3. Register placements in the dashboard and call register/present APIs from your app screens.
4. Configure webhooks to /api/billing/webhook/superwall on your deployed web API.

Product ids must match App Store Connect and Google Play exactly (store configuration).

How TurboStarter maps to this choice

TurboStarter Core treats mobile billing as a provider swap, not a fork of your app.

• Default: RevenueCat exports in @workspace/billing-mobile, RevenueCat webhooks on the Hono/Next API, plans in shared billing config with store products often marked hidden on web (mobile billing overview).
• Alternative: change package exports to Superwall, set Superwall keys and webhook secret, same hooks at the app layer.
• Related reading: RevenueCat vs Stripe for web + mobile together; Expo RevenueCat integration kit for a RevenueCat-first stack page.

If you are comparing RevenueCat paywalls vs Superwall inside TurboStarter, the integration surface area is similar: env vars, webhook route, and paywall presentation APIs. The decision is product and pricing model, not framework lock-in.

Frequently asked questions

The verdict

Superwall vs RevenueCat is not a winner-take-all choice. RevenueCat is the default subscription brain for most Expo apps, including RevenueCat Paywalls when you want remote layout without adding a second vendor. Superwall is the stronger bet when paywall experimentation, campaigns, and MAR-aligned pricing match how you ship monetization. In TurboStarter, either path is production-ready behind @workspace/billing-mobile. Pick the owner of entitlements, wire webhooks once, and spend your iteration budget on paywalls that convert, not on rewriting store billing.

Start from the mobile billing overview or the Expo RevenueCat integration kit if RevenueCat fits; switch to Superwall when your team is ready to optimize paywalls first.