Superwall vs Adapty: paywall revenue vs all revenue, web views vs native, and which fits an indie app

The base is what matters. Superwall says “Subscriptions purchased outside Superwall are free” and “Imported & pre-integration users are never billed.” Adapty counts “All revenue tracked by Adapty during a billing month”. So an app with an existing subscriber base, or revenue from a web checkout Superwall doesn't render, pays Adapty on all of it and Superwall on none of it.

Now take an app making $20,000 a month where half comes from subscribers who signed up before the switch. Adapty bills 1% of $20,000 — $200. Superwall bills only the $10,000 that comes through its paywalls, which on Indie is $0 or about $100 depending on how the threshold is applied. The gap grows with every dollar Superwall doesn't render.

Where Superwall costs more is its paid tiers: Startup and Scale add $49 and $199 a month on top of the same 1%, for features like surveys, paywall localization and collaborators. Our Superwall review works through those plans.

This is the biggest product difference. Superwall renders paywalls from a single web-standards runtime, preloaded and cached on the device, which is why its pricing page says “New paywall features ship without an app store release.” Adapty's docs say its SDK “renders flows natively without web views”, and its builder covers onboarding flows as well as paywalls.

• Superwall organises tests as campaigns: placements (moments in your app), audiences, and paywalls, including holdouts with no paywall at all. Cal AI ran 123 experiments across 46 trigger points on it, per Superwall's case study — see our Cal AI teardown.
• Adapty runs regular A/B tests on a single placement and cross-placement tests for new users. Its docs say it uses “a 2-week revenue per user” as a proxy metric and calculates each variant's probability of being best.
• Analytics. Adapty offers cohort analysis with predicted LTV and early winner predictions. Superwall includes charts and SQL access to your subscription data on every plan.
• Each vendor's view of the other. Adapty's own comparison page concedes that “Superwall leads on paywall testing depth” and positions Adapty as covering both paywalls and subscription infrastructure.

• Superwall to Adapty. Adapty publishes a migration guide that maps Superwall's concepts — a campaign becomes a placement plus an audience — and says most migrations take “about two hours”. Its comparison page says a day and its pricing FAQ says a few days to a week, so budget for the longer end.
• Either alongside RevenueCat. Superwall recommends putting RevenueCat in observer mode; Adapty supports observer mode with your own purchase code. Neither forces you to move existing purchases on day one.
• Web purchases. Superwall offers Stripe web checkout and an App2Web flow for the US storefront; Adapty supports web paywalls through Stripe or Paddle. App Review rules on linking out apply to both — see Guideline 3.1.1.