Selling a subscription app: what happens to your subscribers, RevenueCat, and revenue

Subscription apps raise the most questions when founders sell: “Will my subscribers be cancelled? Who gets paid this month? What about RevenueCat?” Here’s how it actually works.

Do subscribers keep paying after an app is sold?

Yes, subscribers keep paying after an app is sold, because App Store subscriptions are tied to the app and its In-App Purchase products, not to your developer account. When the app moves through Apple’s app transfer, the products move with it and subscriptions continue renewing. Subscribers don’t need to do anything and generally won’t notice. The seller name on the App Store listing is the main visible change.

To be precise about sources: that subscriptions continue is the consistent experience of buyers and sellers, not a sentence Apple publishes. Apple’s app transfer documentation (checked September 2026) talks about reporting: each side gets sales and payment data for its side of the transfer date. Renewals before the transfer are yours; renewals after it are the buyer’s.

Who gets the revenue in the transfer month?

You keep revenue earned before the transfer date; the buyer gets everything after it. Apple pays out in arrears, so money earned before the transfer may arrive in your bank account after you’ve sold. That’s normal; it’s yours. Agree in the contract how the transfer month is handled (most deals simply use the transfer date as the cut-off), so nobody argues about a few days of renewals later.

Which keys and secrets do I hand over or rotate?

Share the app-specific shared secret before the transfer; the buyer then regenerates it and creates their own In-App Purchase and App Store Connect API keys.

How do I transfer a RevenueCat project?

RevenueCat transfers whole projects, not individual apps, so you either move the project or the buyer recreates it:

1. Transfer the project: if the project contains only the app you’re selling, RevenueCat support can move it to the buyer (or the account email can be changed). Subscriber history stays intact.
2. Recreate it: if the project contains other apps, the buyer creates an identical setup (products, entitlements, offerings) in their own project, then ships an update with their API key and a small migration step so existing subscribers’ App Store purchases sync into the new project.

Either way, rotate the credentials listed above so the buyer fully controls the integration. Follow RevenueCat’s guide to transferring apps for the exact steps (checked September 2026).

What changes for RevenueCat on Android?

On Google Play, subscriptions and subscribers move with the app in Google’s app transfer, but the buyer has to connect RevenueCat to their own Play account. They create a service account in their Google Cloud project, invite it to Play Console with the right permissions and upload its key; RevenueCat says new credentials can take up to 36 hours to work (checked September 2026), so set them up before transfer day. More in the guide on RevenueCat on Android and the Google Play transfer.

What about Stripe or web subscriptions?

Web subscriptions billed through Stripe can’t be moved seamlessly between Stripe accounts, according to the same RevenueCat guide. Options include keeping them on your account for an agreed period and passing the revenue through, migrating customers with Stripe’s help, or letting them lapse into App Store subscriptions. Raise this early, because it affects the price.

What subscription metrics will buyers ask for?

Buyers will ask for active subscribers by plan, conversion and renewal rates, churn and the MRR trend.

• Active subscribers and the monthly / annual / weekly split.
• Trial-to-paid conversion and renewal rates by plan.
• Refund rate and involuntary churn (billing failures).
• MRR trend for the last 12–24 months.
• Revenue by country and by acquisition channel.

A RevenueCat read-only view or a shared screen makes this quick. See the full list of subscription metrics buyers check.

Do subscription apps sell for a higher multiple?

Subscription apps with healthy renewals usually sell toward the higher end of the range, because recurring revenue is more predictable. Flippa’s app market report notes that apps earning mainly from ads or one-time purchases tend to get lower multiples than apps with recurring revenue (checked September 2026; more in selling an ad-supported or paid app). AI subscription apps have their own cost questions: selling an AI wrapper app. There’s no reliable public figure for a separate “subscription multiple”, so the published ranges in how much is my app worth are the honest benchmark. For a quick estimate, try the app valuation calculator.