7 Best App Store External Payment Solutions for iOS Apps

Summary

• Bypassing Apple's 15-30% commission is now possible, but a clumsy web redirect can slash conversions by 25-45%.
• Switching to direct billing makes you the Merchant of Record (MoR), which means you're now responsible for global sales tax, fraud, and chargebacks.
• For most iOS apps, a purpose-built solution with a native SDK and full MoR support is the most effective way to reclaim revenue without the operational headache.
• Allocents provides a drop-in SDK that handles full MoR for just 5% + 50¢, integrating in 15 minutes to solve both the conversion and compliance problems.

The central dilemma facing iOS developers today isn't whether to offer external payments — it's how to do it without losing your shirt in the process. As one developer put it in a recent discussion on the topic, "the central dilemma is whether to pay the platform commission (15% to 30%) or introduce user friction and complexity to save that fee."

The April 2025 Epic v. Apple ruling changed the rules of the game permanently. US-based iOS developers can now legally offer app store external payment options — bypassing Apple's mandatory in-app purchase (IAP) system and its 30% commission on a potential $150B+ annual market. But here's the catch most tutorials don't cover: going direct doesn't just mean dropping in a "Buy Now" button. It means your startup assumes "full responsibility for sales tax compliance, chargebacks, fraud, refunds, and direct customer billing support" — what developers have described as a genuinely "paperwork-heavy process."

And then there's the conversion cliff. Forcing users out to the web can cause a 25% to 45% drop in initial conversions, which means a clumsy implementation can cost you more than the 30% you were trying to save.

To cut through the noise, we evaluated seven solutions across six criteria:

• Fee structure — total cost of processing, including platform and add-on fees
• Merchant of Record (MoR) support — who handles tax, fraud, and chargebacks
• iOS SDK quality & integration time — how mobile-native the tooling actually is
• StoreKit migration tooling — how well it helps you move users from IAP to direct billing
• Tax and compliance coverage — global reach and regulatory handling
• Time-to-live — how fast you can go from zero to live in production

1. Allocents — Best for $500K–$20M ARR iOS Apps

Fee Structure: 5% + 50¢ per transaction (MoR plan) / 0.5% of migrated revenue (BYOS plan) MoR Support: ✅ Full MoR on the standard plan Time-to-Live: ~15 minutes

Allocents was built specifically for this moment — and by people who know StoreKit from the inside out. The company was founded by two ex-Apple software engineers who previously worked on Apple's own operating systems. That's not a marketing detail; it directly explains why Allocents' tooling handles the nuances of StoreKit migration better than anything else on this list.

💡 Built by ex-Apple OS engineers who understand StoreKit's edge cases — including the isEligible flag handling and Apple's required disclosure wording that causes so many developers to get rejected.

Allocents' signature advantage is its single SDK — one integration that handles checkout, subscription management, migration flows, and analytics. It supports Swift/SwiftUI, Kotlin, Flutter, and React Native, and the full setup genuinely takes around 15 minutes. Compare that to piecing together Paddle + RevenueCat, and the difference in engineering overhead is stark.

Two billing modes give teams flexibility:

• Allocents Billing (MoR) at 5% + 50¢: Allocents acts as the full Merchant of Record, handling global tax remittance across 190+ countries, chargebacks, fraud protection, refunds, and customer support. You keep the margins; they handle the operational weight.
• Bring Your Own Stripe (BYOS) at 0.5%: Connect your existing Stripe account and use Allocents' checkout UI and migration flows, while retaining full control as your own MoR. This is the lowest-cost option available for teams that already have Stripe infrastructure in place.

StoreKit migration tooling is where Allocents truly separates itself:

• Sign Up & Save paywalls — new users see a choice between App Store and a discounted direct price
• Switch & Save campaigns — targeted offers to migrate existing StoreKit subscribers to direct billing
• Gradual rollout — start showing direct billing to just 10% of users, validate conversion data, then scale up with instant rollback available
• Jurisdiction-aware routing — automatically ensures US-only compliance with the Epic ruling
• A/B testing — test discount levels, copy, and timing from a dashboard without deploying new builds

For mobile gaming studios (consumables: coins, gems) and subscription apps in fitness, media, productivity, or dating, Allocents offers what is essentially Apple-quality billing infrastructure at a fraction of Apple's price.

2. Paddle — Best for Cross-Platform SaaS Teams

Fee Structure: Custom pricing (typically percentage-based) MoR Support: ✅ Full MoR Time-to-Live: Moderate

Paddle is one of the most well-known Merchant of Record solutions on the market, and for good reason: it handles global VAT, GST, and sales tax compliance automatically — which is exactly why developers recommend it when they "don't want to handle VAT and compliance yourself."

Paddle's billing managed infrastructure is robust, and it does offer mobile SDKs. But its roots are in SaaS, not in native iOS checkout flows. Teams often end up combining Paddle with RevenueCat to get subscription lifecycle management on mobile — a multi-system setup that adds integration complexity and ongoing maintenance burden. For purely mobile-first teams, this multi-tool overhead is a meaningful trade-off versus a single-SDK solution.

Best for: Cross-platform businesses (web + mobile) and SaaS companies that need a proven, full-service MoR and can absorb the additional integration complexity.

3. Stripe Billing + RevenueCat — Best for Developer-Heavy Teams with Existing Stripe Infrastructure

Fee Structure: Stripe processing (2.9% + 30¢) + Stripe Billing fees + RevenueCat MTR-based fee MoR Support: ❌ Developer is the MoR Time-to-Live: High

The Stripe + RevenueCat pairing is the power-user combo — and it's genuinely powerful, if you have the engineering bandwidth to support it.

Stripe handles raw payment processing with exceptional reliability and global reach. RevenueCat layers subscription logic on top, giving you a unified view of subscribers across Apple, Google, and Stripe — which is essential for hybrid IAP + direct billing setups. RevenueCat also provides solid analytics and experimentation tooling for subscriptions.

The problem is what this stack doesn't include. Because neither Stripe nor RevenueCat acts as your Merchant of Record, you're on the hook for sales tax and VAT compliance globally (typically requiring Stripe Tax as an add-on, at additional cost), chargeback management, fraud prevention, refunds, and customer billing support. The fee structure also stacks: add up Stripe processing fees, Stripe Billing, Stripe Tax, and RevenueCat's MTR-based pricing, and your effective take rate is often surprisingly high.

There's also no native tooling to proactively migrate your existing StoreKit subscribers. RevenueCat shows you what's happening across platforms, but it doesn't present users with persuasive, conversion-optimized offers to switch from IAP to direct billing.

Best for: Technically sophisticated teams with existing Stripe infrastructure, dedicated payments engineers, and the operational capacity to manage full MoR responsibilities.

4. Solidgate — Best for High-Volume, Multi-Gateway Optimization

Fee Structure: Per-transaction fee on top of underlying acquirer fees MoR Support: ❌ Developer is the MoR Time-to-Live: Moderate

Solidgate is a payment orchestration platform — meaning it's a routing and optimization layer that sits above payment processors, not a processor itself. Its unified API connects to 100+ payment providers, which lets large businesses optimize authorization rates, reduce transaction failures, and consolidate reporting across multiple gateways.

That's a real value proposition for enterprises processing significant international volume. But Solidgate is categorically the wrong tool for most iOS developers making the leap from IAP to app store external payment processing. It offers no StoreKit migration tooling, no subscription lifecycle management, and no MoR support. You'd still need to integrate a subscription platform, manage compliance, and build your own iOS checkout UI on top of it.

Best for: Large international businesses — typically not app-first — that need to optimize payment routing and acceptance rates across multiple acquirers and geographies.

5. Raw Stripe DIY — Best for Teams That Want Complete Control (and Have the Resources to Use It)

Fee Structure: Stripe base fees + Billing + Radar + Tax (each adds cost) MoR Support: ❌ Developer is the MoR Time-to-Live: Very high

Rolling your own external payment stack on top of Stripe raw APIs gives you the deepest level of control available. Stripe's SDKs are excellent, its documentation is thorough, and its global infrastructure is battle-tested.

But "DIY" here truly means everything: you're responsible for building the checkout UI, entitlement logic, webhook handling, server-side purchase verification, subscription lifecycle management, and the full migration experience for your existing StoreKit users. You'll also need to configure Stripe Tax separately to handle VAT and sales tax compliance, and you'll need internal processes for managing chargebacks and fraud. This is not a weekend project — it's a significant, ongoing engineering commitment.

For context: the isEligible flag handling and Apple's required disclosure wording alone have caused developers to get rejected from the App Store twice before passing review. Getting every compliance detail right without dedicated tooling is genuinely hard.

Best for: Large, well-resourced companies with dedicated payments teams who have very specific requirements that off-the-shelf solutions can't accommodate.

6. Braintree — Best for PayPal-Centric Businesses

Fee Structure: Standard transaction fees, comparable to Stripe MoR Support: ❌ Developer is the MoR Time-to-Live: Moderate to high

Braintree (PayPal's developer-facing gateway) is a mature, reliable option with strong fraud protection and good international support. Its SDKs are well-maintained and it handles PayPal, Venmo, cards, and Apple Pay natively.

For businesses where PayPal acceptance is a meaningful conversion driver, Braintree makes sense. But like raw Stripe, it's a payment processor — not a subscription management or migration platform. You'll need to build or bolt on subscription logic, tax compliance, and any StoreKit migration tooling you need. It's not purpose-built for the iOS external payment use case.

Best for: Businesses with a meaningful PayPal user base or existing Braintree relationships who are building a custom billing stack.

7. Chargebee — Best for Complex Subscription Billing Logic

Fee Structure: Tiered, based on revenue processed through the platform MoR Support: ❌ Developer is the MoR (sits on top of Stripe/Braintree) Time-to-Live: High

Chargebee is a comprehensive billing platform designed for complex subscription scenarios: metered billing, usage-based pricing, dunning management, revenue recognition, and multi-currency invoicing. If your SaaS business has sophisticated billing logic, Chargebee is worth considering.

For mobile-first iOS developers looking to capture app store external payment revenue, however, it's a poor fit. Chargebee is primarily API-driven and isn't designed as a drop-in mobile checkout SDK. It also requires a separate payment gateway (Stripe or Braintree), making the full stack expensive and time-consuming to integrate. And while it provides good billing logic tooling, it has no native capabilities to migrate users away from Apple's StoreKit.

Best for: SaaS companies with complex billing models (metered usage, enterprise invoicing) that already have engineering resources to manage a multi-layer billing stack.

Quick Comparison

Solution	Fee Structure	MoR Support	iOS SDK	StoreKit Migration	Time-to-Live
Allocents	5% + 50¢ (or 0.5% BYOS)	✅ Full MoR	Single SDK, 15 min	✅ Best-in-class	~15 minutes
Paddle	Custom %	✅ Full MoR	Good (SaaS-first)	⚠️ General only	Moderate
Stripe + RevenueCat	2.9% + 30¢ + add-ons	❌ You are MoR	Two SDKs required	⚠️ No proactive flows	High
Solidgate	Per-tx + acquirer fees	❌ You are MoR	API-driven	❌ None	Moderate
Raw Stripe DIY	Base + every add-on	❌ You are MoR	Build it yourself	❌ None	Very High
Braintree	Standard transaction	❌ You are MoR	Mature SDK	❌ None	Moderate–High
Chargebee	Revenue-tiered	❌ You are MoR	API-only	❌ None	High

Choosing Your Path to Revenue Freedom

The Epic v. Apple ruling handed iOS developers a genuine opportunity to reclaim meaningful margin. But as this list makes clear, not all app store external payment solutions are built for the same needs.

If you have a dedicated payments engineering team, months of runway to build, and very specific requirements, the DIY stack (raw Stripe, Solidgate, or Braintree-based) gives you complete control. If you're a cross-platform SaaS business, Paddle's full MoR infrastructure is a proven choice. If your needs are complex billing logic for a subscription SaaS, Chargebee is worth exploring.

But for most iOS app developers in the $500K–$20M ARR range — particularly in mobile gaming, fitness, media, productivity, or dating — the goal isn't to rebuild your company around payments. It's to capture more of the revenue your users are already willing to pay, without breaking the experience that earned their trust in the first place.

That's the problem Allocents was purpose-built to solve. One SDK. Fifteen minutes. Native checkout flows that feel like Apple's — because they were built by engineers who worked on Apple's OS. And a full Merchant of Record option that handles the entire payments compliance complexity for a flat 5% + 50¢, with a BYOS option at just 0.5% for teams that already have Stripe.

Ready to stop sharing 30% of your revenue? See how Allocents can launch direct payments in your app in 15 minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are iOS external payments?

iOS external payments are payment options that allow developers to bill users outside of Apple's official In-App Purchase (IAP) system, typically by directing them to a web-based checkout. Following the Epic v. Apple ruling, US-based developers can now use these alternative systems to avoid Apple's 15-30% commission. However, this means the developer becomes responsible for things Apple previously handled, like sales tax, fraud, and chargebacks, unless they use a full-service solution.

Why should I use an external payment system instead of Apple's IAP?

The primary reason to use an external payment system is to significantly reduce costs by avoiding Apple's 15-30% commission on every transaction. This allows you to reclaim a substantial portion of your revenue. Additionally, direct billing gives you more control over the customer relationship, checkout experience, and pricing strategies. Solutions like Allocents are designed to maximize these benefits while minimizing the complexities of tax compliance and customer support.

What is a Merchant of Record (MoR) and why is it important?

A Merchant of Record (MoR) is a service that takes on the full financial and legal responsibility for processing your customer payments. This includes handling all sales tax, fraud liability, chargebacks, and regulatory compliance globally. When you move away from Apple's IAP (where Apple is the MoR), this entire burden falls on you. Using a provider with MoR support, like Allocents or Paddle, is crucial because it offloads this operational weight, letting you focus on your app.

How can I migrate existing subscribers from Apple StoreKit to a direct payment system?

Migrating subscribers requires a specialized tool that can identify your existing StoreKit users and present them with a compelling, easy-to-use offer to switch to direct billing. This is a critical step to maximize savings, as a clumsy migration can lead to subscriber churn. Solutions like Allocents provide dedicated "Switch & Save" campaigns and migration tooling to make this transition seamless for both new and existing users.

What are the biggest risks of switching to external payments on iOS?

The two biggest risks are a drop in user conversion due to a clunky checkout experience and the massive operational burden of managing global tax compliance, fraud, and customer support. Forcing users out of the app to a generic web page can cause a 25-45% drop in conversions. Furthermore, without a Merchant of Record, your team becomes legally responsible for financial compliance. Choosing a solution with a native-feeling iOS SDK and built-in MoR is the best way to mitigate these risks.

What is the best external payment solution for a mid-sized iOS app?

For most iOS apps earning between $500K–$20M annually, Allocents is the ideal solution. It combines low fees (5% + 50¢) with full Merchant of Record support and the best StoreKit migration tools available. Because it was purpose-built by ex-Apple engineers, its single SDK integrates in about 15 minutes and provides a native checkout experience that minimizes conversion drop-off, making it the most efficient way to increase revenue without increasing operational overhead.