App Clips
An App Clip lets someone use a slice of your app in seconds, with no install and no account. The growth question is what happens next: whether that first taste turns into a full install and a subscription.
Updated
Apple introduced App Clips in iOS 14. They were designed for moments when a full download is too much friction: paying for parking, ordering at a café, renting a scooter, or trying a single feature. The App Clip is built from the same project as the full app, ships with it in App Store Connect, and downloads on demand when a user invokes it.
How users launch an App Clip
A user never searches for an App Clip in the App Store. It is invoked from the outside world or from another surface on the device, and iOS shows an App Clip card with a button to open it.
- App Clip Codes and QR codes, scanned with the camera.
- NFC tags, tapped with the phone.
- Links shared in Messages or opened in Safari, including a Smart App Banner on your website.
- Place cards in Apple Maps for supported businesses.
- Recently used App Clips, which the system can surface again.
Size limits and technical constraints
App Clips must stay small so they open almost instantly. Apple sets a maximum size for the App Clip, and that limit has grown in later iOS versions, with the largest allowances reserved for clips invoked from sources other than a physical code or tag. Check Apple’s current documentation for the exact figure for your deployment target.
- An App Clip should focus on one task and avoid features that need long setup.
- Some capabilities available to full apps are restricted or unavailable in App Clips.
- Sign in with Apple and Apple Pay are the natural fit for account creation and payment, since they avoid typing.
- The system removes an App Clip and its data after a period without use, so anything important must move to the full app or a server.
From App Clip to full app and subscription
An App Clip is an acquisition surface, not a destination. For a subscription app, the job is to deliver one clear moment of value, then make the path to the full app and the paywall short.
- Deliver value first. Let the user finish the task before asking for anything.
- Offer the full app at the right moment. App Clips can show an overlay recommending the full app, which opens its App Store page without leaving the clip.
- Carry context over. Use a shared app group or a server account so the full app opens where the user left off, instead of restarting onboarding.
- Show the subscription offer in the full app, where it can be tailored to the task the user came for, such as a trial that continues what they just did.
- Measure the funnel: App Clip sessions, full-app installs, trial starts and paid subscriptions, broken out by invocation source.
App Clips and paid acquisition
App Clips are mostly triggered by physical and web touchpoints rather than by ads in the App Store. They complement paid channels such as Apple Ads: the ad reaches people searching in the store, while the clip reaches people at the moment of need outside it. Track them as separate sources so their users can be compared on the same trial and subscription outcomes.