What is Subster
Subster sells access to your app in the browser: a person pays by card before installing, and the money goes to your Stripe account.
While subscriptions are bought inside the app, the app store processes the payment: it takes the buyer's money, keeps its cut — 15 to 30% — and sends you a payout. Along with the money, the buyer's trail also goes through the store — on the phone, the link “this ad led to this payment” is lost.
Subster moves the sale to the browser — before the person installs the app. They arrive from an ad link, answer the quiz questions, see the paywall and pay by card right there. They open the app when access is already paid for.
The path of one purchase
- Ad. The person taps the ad and lands not in the app store but on your page, on your domain.
- Quiz. A few questions about them and their goal: they lead the person to the purchase and show you at which step people drop off.
- Paywall. At the end of the quiz the person sees your prices — a subscription for a day, week, month or year, or a one-time payment.
- Card payment. The person pays on the Stripe payment page. The money goes to the Stripe account you connected to the project.
- Return to the app. Right after payment, the “Access granted” screen opens with an “Open the app” button. If the app is not on the device, the store opens. The same screen and an email both carry a code: with it the person opens access in the app, even if they paid on a computer.
Every step of this path shows up in reports: ad click, page visit, payment, move to the app, install, access opened.
Why the app store stays out of it
The purchase happens not in the app but on your page in the browser and on the Stripe payment page. The app store sells nothing through itself, so it keeps no 15–30% — it stays the place where the person downloads the app.
Subster does not stand between you and the buyer: payment goes through your Stripe account, and the full amount arrives there.
What the app does for this
The app is taught once to ask Subster what this person bought. The answer is a list of what was paid for and the date until which access is valid — the app uses it to decide what to open.
You do not need to rewrite the app for this, and the work is one-off. You can publish a funnel and accept payments before the engineer gets to it.
What you need to start
- A Stripe account. Buyers' money arrives there; you connect it at the Pricing and payments step.
- A domain. Your own or bought from us: a funnel has no address of its own, and without a domain visitors cannot open it.
- A paid plan. On the free plan you can create one thing — a quiz or a paywall; a full funnel and its publishing open on a paid plan.
- A developer. Needed once and not at the start — when you get to the return to the app.
Next
- Quick start — five steps from an empty cabinet to a published funnel.
- Project and team — where work begins: a project for each app and access for colleagues.
- Handoff to a developer — what to send the engineer so that paid access opens in the app.