Reference
Plain-English definitions for the metrics, payment concepts, and product terms that appear in mobile app and subscription work.
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28 terms
The recurring revenue a subscription business expects over a year, normalized to an annual value.
Teams often estimate ARR as monthly recurring revenue multiplied by 12. Keep the treatment of discounts, refunds, usage charges, and one-time fees consistent when comparing periods.
The process of assigning an install or in-app action to a marketing source under a defined set of rules.
Attribution results depend on the measurement window, platform privacy rules, available signals, and the model used. It is better to state those rules than to present one source as unquestionable truth.
The ways a mobile app turns usage into revenue.
Common models include subscriptions, one-time in-app purchases, advertising, sponsorships, paid downloads, and commerce. The right model depends on the product's value, audience, and cost to serve.
Compare mobile and web payment setupsThe practice of improving an app's store listing so relevant people can discover it and decide whether to install it.
ASO can include keyword choices, screenshots, video, ratings, localization, and conversion analysis. Store search visibility and listing conversion are related but separate outcomes.
The share of customers or subscribers lost during a period.
A basic subscriber churn formula is subscribers lost during the period divided by subscribers at the start. Revenue churn and customer churn answer different questions, so label the version you report.
Check cancellation and expiration statesA group of users who share a starting event or another useful characteristic.
A product team might compare people who installed in the same week, started the same trial, or came from the same campaign. Cohorts make retention and revenue changes easier to interpret than blended totals alone.
Advertising spend divided by the number of attributed app installs.
CPI measures acquisition cost at the install step. It does not show whether those installs became active, retained, or paying users.
Plan app-market testsThe cost of acquiring a new customer over a stated period and scope.
A simple formula divides eligible acquisition costs by new customers. State whether the calculation includes only media spend or also sales, creative, tooling, and staff costs.
A named level of access that an app grants when a customer owns a qualifying product.
In subscription platforms such as RevenueCat, several store products can unlock the same entitlement. That lets app code check access without hard-coding every product identifier.
See entitlements in an Expo setupA model that offers a useful free experience and charges for additional access or capability.
The free tier helps people experience the product before paying. The boundary must leave enough value to build trust while giving the paid plan a clear reason to exist.
A digital product or service purchased from inside an app through a supported purchase system.
Examples include consumables, permanent feature unlocks, and subscriptions. Store rules, product types, and regional requirements determine which purchase routes are available.
Use the subscription launch checklistAn estimate of the economic value a customer produces across their relationship with a product.
LTV models vary. Some use revenue and others use contribution margin; some use historical cohorts and others forecast future behavior. Document the formula before comparing LTV with acquisition cost.
The legal entity recorded as the seller in a customer transaction.
The merchant of record typically carries responsibilities connected to payments, refunds, taxes, and compliance for that sale. The exact responsibilities depend on the provider, market, and contract.
Understand the payment-system rolesA platform used to measure and report mobile campaign attribution across advertising sources.
An MMP can consolidate campaign data and apply attribution logic, but reported results still depend on consent, platform frameworks, data availability, and configuration.
Recurring subscription revenue normalized to a monthly value.
MRR is useful for tracking new, expansion, contraction, and churned recurring revenue. It is a management metric rather than a substitute for recognized revenue in financial statements.
In RevenueCat, a configurable collection of subscription packages that an app can present to customers.
An offering determines which packages are available together, while a package points to a store product. Calling out the vendor-specific meaning avoids confusing it with the everyday word “offering.”
Configure products, packages, and offeringsThe screen or interaction that explains paid access and lets a user choose a purchase option.
A paywall usually combines product information, pricing, benefits, purchase controls, and required disclosures. Its job is both commercial and informational.
Compare subscription and paywall toolsAdapting a product's price or displayed price information for a market.
Localization can involve currency, tax display, formatting, and market-specific price points. It is more deliberate than converting one base price with the latest exchange rate.
A stable string used to identify a purchasable product in a store or billing system.
The identifier connects store configuration, purchase SDKs, backend records, and analytics. A display name can change; app logic should use the configured identifier expected by the platform.
See a product mapping exampleThe process of checking purchase evidence with a trusted system before granting or updating access.
Validation helps determine what was purchased and its current state. Production access should not depend only on an unverified success flag stored on the device.
A customer action that asks an app to recover eligible prior purchases from the store account.
Restoration is especially important after reinstalling an app or moving to another device. Account identity and transfer rules still determine which app user receives access.
Test purchase restoration before launchThe share of a starting group that remains active or subscribed at a later point.
Define both the starting event and the return condition. Day-30 app activity, month-one paid retention, and renewal retention describe different behaviors.
Attributed revenue divided by advertising spend for a stated scope and period.
ROAS does not include every business cost and can change as later subscription revenue arrives. Report the attribution window, revenue window, and whether refunds or platform fees are included.
Design a clearer market testA set of libraries, interfaces, and documentation used to add a platform or service to an application.
An SDK can simplify common work, but it also adds version, privacy, security, and lifecycle considerations. Record the version you tested and review its release notes before upgrading.
Follow an SDK integration exampleAn arrangement that provides continuing access or service in exchange for recurring payment.
A subscription has a lifecycle that can include trial, activation, renewal, billing problems, cancellation, grace periods, and expiration. Cancellation does not always mean access ends immediately.
Review the subscription lifecycleThe share of eligible trial starters who become paying customers under a defined measurement rule.
State whether conversion means an initial charge, an active subscription after a delay, or another event. Exclusions, refunds, billing failures, and observation windows can change the result.
An HTTP message one system sends to another when a defined event occurs.
Billing webhooks can report renewals, payment failures, cancellations, and refunds. Receivers should verify authenticity, handle retries, and process duplicate events safely.
See why billing continues after checkoutA journey that starts on the web and continues in a mobile app.
Examples include web acquisition followed by app onboarding, or a permitted web purchase linked to app access. Identity, attribution, deep linking, and current store rules all affect the implementation.
Compare web and mobile purchase paths