Due diligence, the money part
How a buyer checks the revenue of an app or SaaS business
Put a year of an app's bank statements next to its App Store console and they will not agree, even if the app earned exactly the same amount every day. On the payment calendar RevenueCat keeps for Apple, 2026 has no App Store payment at all in February, May, August and November.
A steady app, as its bank sees it
An app that makes exactly $1,000 a day in App Store proceeds, every day of 2026. What reaches its bank account each calendar month, in thousands of dollars.
What a buyer asks to see
Acquire.com calls verifiable financials the place where most deals stall today. The buyer wants each month twice: where the sales happen, in the store console or Stripe, and where the money lands, in the bank.
Most of it is read-only access. App Store Connect has a Finance role that sees Payments and Financial Reports, and a Sales role for sales and downloads. Stripe has a View only role that can export data and download reports but cannot move money. Acquire's advice to buyers is blunt: a number that lives in the founder's head instead of a document counts as a risk.
Why the bank never matches the console
Apple does not pay by calendar month. Its fiscal months run four or five weeks, and Apple pays within 45 days of a fiscal month's end, in practice about 33 days after it. Proceeds from every currency go out as one payment per fiscal month, converted at the rate on the day of payment, and the bank may take a fee on the way. So the credit rarely equals the console to the cent.
When a five-week month closes, all five weeks arrive together.
Apple, App Store Connect Help: payment within 45 days of the last day of the fiscal month. Payment date from RevenueCat's Apple fiscal calendar (estimate).
Google Play pays around the 15th of the following month for everything from the 1st to the last day. Stripe pays out daily, weekly or monthly, on whatever schedule the account is set to. In RevenueCat's interviews with app buyers, unexplained cliffs in the numbers came up among the things that slow a deal down. February 2026 is one of those cliffs until someone explains it.
Sales, proceeds and the buyer's own rate
The console shows sales at the price customers paid and proceeds after the store's cut. Under Apple's Small Business Program, for developers with up to $1M in proceeds, a subscription keeps 85% from the first payment. Outside it, a subscriber in their first year brings 70%, and 85% after a year of paid service. Google Play takes 15% on subscriptions.
This reaches the price. When an app changes hands, Apple counts that year's proceeds for both the account that sends it and the account that receives it. If the buyer's apps already make more than $1M, your app loses the 15% rate, and a first-year subscriber brings 70 cents on the dollar from then on.
One Stripe account, several products
When one Stripe account and one company carry more than one product, the buyer needs the revenue of the product being sold, and proof that it ties back to the bank. In practice it is a monthly table where the product's revenue and everything else add up to what reached the account.
When we take an app or a SaaS business to buyers, the table that ties the store and Stripe to the bank is in the data room before the first call, so February arrives with its explanation attached. Deals Tonic works with businesses from $20K a month, and a link with the monthly revenue is enough to begin.
Sources: Apple, App Store Connect Help, "Overview of receiving payments" and "Role permissions"; Apple, App Store Small Business Program and auto-renewable subscriptions pages. Google, Play Console Help, "Order processing and payouts" and "Service fees". Stripe Docs, "User roles" and "Payouts". Acquire.com, "9 Red Flags to Watch for When Doing SaaS Due Diligence in 2026", updated 19 July 2026. RevenueCat, "What app buyers really want in 2026", and its Apple fiscal calendar, updated 12 September 2026. Payment dates in 2026 are RevenueCat's estimates: Apple does not publish a schedule. All checked 23 September 2026.
Send the numbers before they ask
Free, and off the record until NDA
Deal. We’ll be back
before the ice melts.
Andrew Levenko
I run off-market M&A for online businesses: fintech, martech and consumer apps. Operator before that, scaled payments to $50M GMV. Based in the UAE.