“We were unable to use Amplitude or Google Analytics even early on. We had to build our own first-party analytics tool in order to really understand what was going on in the app. Using just the out-of-the-box SDK that a lot of these analytics tools have you're just not going to get through Apple review.”

Kids app privacy rules block most analytics and attribution SDKs — build first-party analytics from the start

COPPA and Apple's App Store rules prohibit most standard third-party analytics, advertising attribution, and data collection SDKs in apps designated for children. Reading.com had to build a first-party analytics pipeline that anonymizes data before routing it into Amplitude — adding significant engineering complexity. Any app targeting children must plan for this constraint from day one; retrofitting compliance-friendly analytics is far more costly than building it in.