RevenueCat Paywalls offer a powerful feature for earning the business of more price-sensitive users: exit offers. With exit offers you can present an alternative offering, usually a discounted plan, to users the moment they dismiss a paywall, giving you a second chance to convert a user who might otherwise be lost.

This is a common and effective strategy used in e-commerce to reduce cart abandonment, and it is a valuable capability for mobile app developers. However, the implementation of such offers on the App Store has been a topic of much discussion and some confusion. In this post, we’ll walk you through how to use Exit Offers, discuss the potential for App Review issues with Apple, and provide our recommendation on how to proceed.

What are Exit Offers?

An exit offer is a secondary offer you present to a user when they attempt to close your primary paywall without making a purchase. Instead of simply losing a potential subscriber, you can present them with an alternative, such as a lower price, a longer trial, or a different subscription term.

For example, if your main paywall promotes an annual plan, your exit offer could be a monthly plan. This allows you to capture users who may have been interested but were not ready to commit to a full year.

How to Implement Exit Offers with RevenueCat

We’ve integrated Exit Offers directly into the Paywall Builder in the RevenueCat dashboard, so you can enable them without any code changes. When editing a paywall, you can now designate another one of your offerings to be presented as an exit offer.

This makes it easy to experiment with different win-back strategies and measure their impact on your conversion rates and revenue.

An important implementation note is that exit offers only work when using the presentPaywall or presentPaywallIfNeeded functions that display paywalls in iOS and cross-platform SDKs. On Android, they are automatically enabled when utilizing the PaywallDialog and PaywallActivity classes.

Crucially, exit offers will not work if you manually embed paywall views or components directly into your UI (e.g., PaywallView, Paywall composable, <RevenueCatUI.Paywall> component, etc.). Full details can be found in the paywalls documentation.

A Note on Apple’s App Store Review

While exit offers are a standard practice on the web, their use on the App Store has been inconsistent. Some developers have reported that their apps have been rejected for using them, with Apple’s App Review citing Guideline 5.6 – Developer Code of Conduct. This guideline states that apps should not engage in “manipulative practices” to trick users into making unwanted purchases.

The rejection messages are often similar to this one reported by a developer on Reddit:

“The app attempts to manipulate customers into making unwanted in-app purchases. Specifically, your app still displayed an additional discount offer when we attempted to exit the subscription page.”

Here’s what Apple’s App Review Guidelines explicitly say in Guideline 5.6:

Apps should never prey on users or attempt to rip off customers, trick them into making unwanted purchases, force them to share unnecessary data, raise prices in a tricky manner, charge for features or content that are not delivered, or engage in any other manipulative practices within or outside of the app.

This has created a gray area for developers. The guideline itself does not explicitly forbid exit offers, and the term “manipulative” is subjective. Many popular apps currently use exit offers, yet some App Reviewers do seem to be rejecting apps based on this guideline.

Note that we have not heard any reports of rejections from developers submitting Android apps to the Google Play app store. As of this writing, exit offers seem to be in compliance with Google Play Policies and Guidelines.

Our Recommendation: Try on Android but be careful on iOS

At RevenueCat, we believe that a well-implemented exit offer is a legitimate marketing tool that can provide value to users by giving them more options. However, given the current ambiguity and the risk of rejection from Apple’s App Review, we advise developers to use this feature at their own risk for their iOS apps.

It is worth trying on your Android apps to see how it impacts your conversion before running the risk on iOS. You can use RevenueCat’s Targeting feature to only send paywalls with exit offers to your Android users.

DO NOT try to trick App Review

We want to be very clear on this point: you absolutely should not attempt to circumvent App Review by remotely enabling this feature after your app has been approved. This is a direct violation of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement and could result in the termination of your developer account. The risk is not worth the reward, we promise.

Conclusion

Exit offers are a powerful new tool in your monetization arsenal. They can help you recapture lost subscribers and increase your revenue. However, the current App Review landscape means that you must be cautious when implementing them.

We will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates as we learn more. We encourage you to be prepared for a potential rejection if you use this feature and to have a plan to address it. We look forward to hearing about your experiences with exit offers and App Review.