“When you own the billing relationship, you can do things Apple will never let you do. One of the most powerful is a partial refund offer at cancellation — 'keep your subscription, get 3 months free.' That's a retention lever that doesn't exist if Apple owns the transaction.”

Owning the transaction enables a partial-refund counter-offer at cancellation — impossible inside the App Store

Petit identifies payment ownership as the underrated web2app benefit. Apple's terms prohibit offering promotional pricing as a cancellation counter-offer inside the native flow. Web billing removes that constraint entirely: when a subscriber initiates cancellation, the developer can offer a partial refund, a pause, a discount, or a downgrade — anything that might retain them. The value compounds over a large subscriber base.