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Mobile Development · head to head

Adapty vs Ionic

Adapty logo

Adapty

Mobile Development

In-app subscription and paywall platform, free below 5,000 USD of monthly revenue then 1 percent, with add-ons charged separately

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Ionic logo

Ionic

Mobile Development

Open source UI framework for hybrid mobile apps, now owned by OutSystems

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Adapty the 1 percent headline is only the base rate; Refund Saver at 0.2 percent of revenue, Ads Manager at 3.5 percent of ad spend, Attribution at 0.03 USD per install and Adapty Mail at a 20 percent revenue share stack on top and are individually easy to switch on.; Ionic apps run inside a WebView by default, so animation-heavy or graphics-intensive interfaces feel less native than Flutter or React Native equivalents.
  • They diverge on capability: Adapty covers Visual paywall builder, Ionic covers Web-native UI components.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Adapty and Ionic actually diverge.

Attributes where Adapty and Ionic differ
AttributeAdaptyIonic
Pricing modelPer month by tracked revenueOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsiOS, Android, Web, React Native, FlutterWeb, iOS, Android

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Mobile Development).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Adapty

  • Visual paywall builder
  • A/B testing on paywalls
  • Cross-platform entitlements
  • Subscription analytics
  • Refund Saver add-on
  • Attribution and Ads Manager add-ons

Only in Ionic

  • Web-native UI components
  • Framework bindings
  • Capacitor integration
  • Appflow CI/CD
  • Theming system
  • PWA support

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Adapty

  • A growth marketer who needs to test paywall pricing weekly without an engineering ticket or an app releasenot Ionic
  • A small subscription app that wants to stay free longer than the 2,500 USD threshold offered by the main competitornot Ionic
  • Consolidating subscription analytics and paywall experimentation in one place rather than wiring an analytics tool to a billing SDKnot Ionic
  • Automating Apple refund responses where a measurable share of revenue is lost to refund requestsnot Ionic

Ionic

  • A team with web developers who want to ship an iOS and Android app without hiring native engineersnot Adapty
  • A company building an internal or B2B app where WebView-level performance is acceptablenot Adapty
  • A product already using Capacitor for native device access that wants a matching component librarynot Adapty
  • An organisation that wants one codebase to also ship as a PWA without a separate buildnot Adapty

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Adapty

  • The 1 percent headline is only the base rate; Refund Saver at 0.2 percent of revenue, Ads Manager at 3.5 percent of ad spend, Attribution at 0.03 USD per install and Adapty Mail at a 20 percent revenue share stack on top and are individually easy to switch on.
  • Revenue is calculated before platform fees, so the fee applies to money Apple and Google have already taken a 15 to 30 percent cut of, making the effective rate on received cash noticeably higher than the quoted figure.
  • Adapty Mail at a 20 percent revenue share is a large ongoing cost for a channel most teams would otherwise run through an email platform they already pay a flat fee for.
  • The integration ecosystem, third-party tutorials and hiring pool are smaller than the category leader, so engineers are less likely to have used it before and edge cases have fewer public answers.
  • Paywall configuration and entitlement state live with the vendor, so a migration later means rebuilding both the billing integration and every paywall the marketing team has created.

Ionic

  • Apps run inside a WebView by default, so animation-heavy or graphics-intensive interfaces feel less native than Flutter or React Native equivalents.
  • Appflow, the natural CI/CD and live-update companion product, is priced on a quoted enterprise plan with no published self-serve rate.
  • Ionic the company is now owned by OutSystems, an enterprise low-code vendor, which raises the question of how much roadmap priority the free framework gets against Appflow and OutSystems products.
  • Complex native integrations still require dropping into Capacitor plugin code or native Swift and Kotlin, so the web-only promise breaks down for camera-heavy or AR-heavy apps.
  • Long-term community momentum has shifted toward React Native and Flutter, so the pool of contributed plugins and third-party tutorials is smaller than for those two.

Pricing, plan by plan

Adapty

Free
  • Pro under thresholdFree
    • Free until monthly revenue reaches 5,000 USD
    • All core features, no tiers and no fixed costs
    • Paywall builder and A/B testing included
  • Pro$undefined/month
    • 1 percent of monthly revenue above the 5,000 USD threshold
    • Refund Saver adds 0.2 percent of monthly revenue
    • Ads Manager adds 3.5 percent of monthly ad spend
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Quoted
    • White-glove onboarding
    • 24/7 dedicated Slack support and a success manager

Ionic

Free
  • Ionic FrameworkFree
    • MIT licensed, unlimited apps
    • Full component library and framework bindings
    • Community support via forums and Discord

Which should you pick?

Choose Adapty if

  • You need visual paywall builder.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on iOS, Android, Web, React Native, Flutter.
  • You also want a/b testing on paywalls.
Adapty review

Choose Ionic if

  • You need web-native ui components.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want framework bindings.
Ionic review

Questions people ask

Is Adapty or Ionic better?
Neither clearly leads. Adapty starts at Free and Ionic at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Adapty or Ionic?
Adapty starts at Free and Ionic at Free.
Does Adapty or Ionic run on more platforms?
Adapty runs on iOS, Android, Web, React Native, Flutter. Ionic runs on Web, iOS, Android.
Can I use Adapty for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Adapty best used for?
Adapty is most often used for a growth marketer who needs to test paywall pricing weekly without an engineering ticket or an app release, a small subscription app that wants to stay free longer than the 2,500 usd threshold offered by the main competitor, consolidating subscription analytics and paywall experimentation in one place rather than wiring an analytics tool to a billing sdk, automating apple refund responses where a measurable share of revenue is lost to refund requests. Of those, a growth marketer who needs to test paywall pricing weekly without an engineering ticket or an app release and a small subscription app that wants to stay free longer than the 2,500 usd threshold offered by the main competitor are not what Ionic is typically brought in for.
What can Adapty do that Ionic cannot?
Adapty covers Visual paywall builder, A/B testing on paywalls, Cross-platform entitlements, Subscription analytics. Ionic covers Web-native UI components, Framework bindings, Capacitor integration, Appflow CI/CD.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Adapty: How much does it cost above the free threshold?

1 percent of monthly revenue, measured in USD before platform fees, with billing starting once you exceed 5,000 USD in a 30 day period.

Ionic: Does OutSystems owning Ionic change the framework licence?

No. Ionic Framework and Capacitor remain MIT licensed and free; the acquisition affects company strategy and the paid Appflow service, not the open source code.

Adapty: Is the free tier really more generous than RevenueCat?

On the base product yes, 5,000 USD against 2,500 USD of monthly revenue, but add-ons are priced separately where the competitor bundles more into its single rate.

Ionic: Do I need Appflow to ship an app?

No. Appflow adds cloud builds and live updates; you can build and deploy manually using Capacitor and native tooling without it.

Adapty: Can marketing change paywalls without a release?

Yes, that is the main reason teams choose it; paywalls are configured server side and published without going through app review.

Ionic: Is Ionic a full replacement for React Native?

It targets a different trade-off: web-skill reuse and WebView rendering versus React Native compiling to native UI components.

Adapty: What does Refund Saver actually do?

It responds to Apple refund requests with transaction evidence to contest them, and it costs an additional 0.2 percent of monthly revenue.

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