Every studio that moves purchases to the web asks the same question: build the web store ourselves, or buy a platform? The first version always looks small: a page, a checkout, a webhook. The real question is what you will own for the next three years.
Here is everything you would own, and how to compare it with buying.
What you would build and keep running
| Component | What it involves |
|---|---|
| Player identity | Signed hand-off from the app so the player never logs in again; token expiry and replay protection |
| Catalogue and prices | Products, bonuses and offers that always match what the game grants |
| Storefront | A store that looks like your game on every phone size, fast on mobile data |
| Payment provider | Integration, payment methods by region, 3DS, declines, wallets |
| Fulfillment | Signed events, retries, exactly-once grants, a full order trail |
| Refunds and chargebacks | Revoking items, disputes, evidence |
| Fraud controls | Velocity checks, risky cards, abuse of promotions |
| Local prices and languages | Price points per currency, translations, regional payment methods |
| Live ops tooling | Offers, bundles, promo codes, banners and seasonal sales without a code release |
| Platform rules | What each app store and region allows for linking out, kept up to date |
| Monitoring and support | Failed deliveries, player tickets, finance reconciliation |
None of these is hard alone. Together they are a product, and a product needs a team after launch.
The questions that decide it
- Is the store your product, or your channel? If players buy from it but your differentiation is the game, the store is a channel.
- Who maintains it in year two? Payment providers change APIs, platform rules change, and every sale needs live ops changes.
- How fast do you need revenue? A built store ships after the build. A bought store can ship this week.
- What does a point of fee cost you? Compare the platform's rate with the yearly cost of the team that owns the list above.
How to compare the cost honestly
- Build: your estimate of engineer-months for the first version, plus the people who keep it running every year, plus payment processing fees, plus the revenue you don't make while it's being built.
- Buy: the platform's rate times your web revenue. With Appside that's 3.9% per successful payment, and nothing else: no setup fee, no subscription, no minimum.
Use your own numbers in the app-store fee calculator to see what moving purchases to the web is worth first. Then decide how much of that you want to spend on owning the stack.
What buying looks like with Appside
- Create your store free: paste your App Store or Google Play link. The store is drafted in your game's look in about two minutes, and you confirm every product and price.
- Your developers connect it in three steps: a player token from your server,
openStore()orpurchase(sku)from the game, and a signed webhook that grants items exactly once. - You run live ops in the Studio: offers, bundles, promo codes, banners, languages, local prices and payment methods.
SDKs for Web, Android, iOS, Unity, Flutter and React Native, plus Node and Python on the server, are ready to download.
Keep the part that matters yours
Whatever you choose, keep your item-granting code behind a signed webhook. It's the one piece every store needs, and the one you keep if you ever switch. The webhook guide includes a standalone proof you can run locally.