Purchases
A Capacitor plugin for implementing in-app purchases and subscriptions with RevenueCat's backend.
What is Purchases?
@revenuecat/purchases-capacitor is the official Capacitor plugin for integrating RevenueCat's in-app purchase and subscription system into mobile apps. It provides a wrapper around StoreKit and Google Play Billing, connecting to RevenueCat's backend to handle product fetching, purchases, subscription status tracking, and receipt validation. This simplifies implementing monetization features by abstracting platform-specific complexities and providing a unified API.
Mobile app developers using Capacitor who need to implement in-app purchases or subscriptions in their iOS, Android, or web apps. It's ideal for teams looking to streamline monetization across platforms without managing low-level billing APIs.
Developers choose this plugin because it offers a free, well-maintained, and officially supported way to integrate RevenueCat's powerful subscription backend with Capacitor apps. It reduces development time, ensures cross-platform consistency, and provides features like server-side receipt validation, analytics, and extensive integrations out of the box.
Overview
Capacitor in-app purchases and subscriptions made easy.
Use Cases
Best For
- Adding subscription-based monetization to Capacitor apps
- Implementing cross-platform in-app purchases with a single API
- Managing and tracking subscription status across iOS and Android
- Integrating purchase data with analytics tools like Adjust or AppsFlyer
- Handling promotional offers and win-back campaigns for subscriptions
- Automating receipt validation and subscription renewal tracking
Not Ideal For
- Developers using other hybrid frameworks like React Native or Flutter
- Organizations with strict data sovereignty requirements that avoid third-party servers for purchase validation
- Apps with only simple, one-time purchase needs that don't require subscription tracking or cross-platform sync
- Teams needing deep, platform-specific billing customization not abstracted by RevenueCat's API
Pros & Cons
Pros
Provides a unified API that wraps StoreKit and Google Play Billing, simplifying in-app purchase implementation across iOS, Android, and web with a single codebase, as highlighted in the README's philosophy.
Automatically validates purchase receipts on RevenueCat's servers for enhanced security and reliability, reducing backend development effort, as noted in the key features.
Supports over a dozen integrations like Adjust and AppsFlyer for seamless purchase data syncing, enabling advanced business metrics without custom code, per the features table.
Allows hosting and configuring products remotely from the RevenueCat dashboard, enabling updates without app releases, as emphasized in the documentation links.
Cons
Tightly couples your app to RevenueCat's backend service, making migration difficult and introducing dependency on their uptime and potential future pricing changes, despite the 'free to use' claim.
Many advanced features like promotional offers and win-back campaigns are iOS-only (e.g., getPromotionalOffer), creating inconsistencies in cross-platform implementations and limiting Android parity.
Requires configuring API keys, integrating with the RevenueCat dashboard, and understanding its ecosystem, adding overhead compared to simpler, native billing APIs for basic use cases.
Frequently Asked Questions
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