Retention
Module 03 · by AMLLC
Gamify Your iOS App
Give subscribers a reason to stay: a quarterly prize giveaway built right into your app. Members vote on the prize, an auditable random draw picks a winner on the day, and the winner chooses the physical item or its cash value. Built as a legal sweepstakes — no purchase necessary — from the first line of code.
Instant access — the reader opens right after payment. Or read chapter one free as a member.
The result
What you end up with
The loop
One cycle, five stages
The whole giveaway runs on a repeatable quarterly cadence. Members only ever see a card; you run the draw from a private admin page.
It's a sweepstakes, not a lottery.
Prize + chance + consideration (money required to enter) is a lottery, which for-profit apps generally can't run in the US. Because subscribers pay you, entry must never require that payment. The fix is boring and non-negotiable: NO PURCHASE NECESSARY, a genuine free alternate method of entry with equal odds, and published Official Rules. This module builds that in from stage zero. It's engineering guidance, not legal advice — have a lawyer review your rules before the first draw.
The math
Cheaper than the churn it prevents.
A third-party "rewards" SaaS
Your own giveaway
Before you start
What you need
A shipping iOS app with paying members, somewhere to store the draw, and one legal review. The module walks the rest.
An app with subscribers — Expo / SwiftUI, anything with an account system and a paid tier. · A database you control — for the cycle, votes, entries, and the audit record. · A prize budget per quarter — and a stated approximate retail value. · A lawyer's eyes on the rules — once, before the first draw.
Inside the module
The giveaway, step by step
Why a giveaway is a retention engine
The loop that turns a one-off prize into a recurring reason to keep a subscription active — and why the countdown does most of the work.
Sweepstakes, not a lottery
The single legal distinction that keeps you out of trouble: no purchase necessary, a free alternate entry with equal odds, and Official Rules.
The data model
Cycle, prize options, votes, entries, winner, and fulfillment — the tables that make the draw auditable and the AMOE a first-class entry source.
The prize poll
Seed the options, one vote per member, live results. How the winning option (or your override) becomes the quarter's prize.
The auditable draw
Freeze the entrant list, pick with a recorded seed and a list hash, make it idempotent — so the same seed always reproduces the same winner.
Winner-chooses fulfillment
Ship the item or send the cash value. Address collection, the tax threshold, and the money rule: the agent prepares a payout, a human sends it.
The two surfaces
The read-only member card (prize, poll, countdown, reveal) and the private web admin where you seed, open the poll, and run the draw.
Gotchas + shipping it as a skill
Re-rolls, duplicate entries, the AMOE that quietly gets equal weight, and packaging the whole workflow as a skill your assistant runs.
Who it's for
Made for the app with a paid tier
You should read this if you run a subscription app and want a loyalty mechanic that people actually engage with — one that runs itself each quarter and keeps members from quietly cancelling.
Skip it if you don't have a paid tier, or you're happy renting a rewards platform that puts its branding on your app and keeps your member list on its own servers.
Or skip the reading entirely — apply to have the whole giveaway built into your app for you, rules and admin included, from $500.
Two doors
Read it, or hand it to us.
Get the guide
The full 8-chapter reader — the data model, the poll, the auditable draw, the fulfillment paths, and the sweepstakes framing to build around. Yours to keep, updated as the pattern improves.
Have it built
We build the giveaway into your app — the member card, the admin draw page, the database, and the Official Rules scaffold — and run a first dry-run draw with you. Apply, we scope it, you approve a fixed price first.
Apply to have it built