Case 30 of 33 · Development / PWA

PWA iOS for a fitness studio: 1.2 MB vs 47 MB native, no App Store

A chain of 4 fitness studios wanted a mobile app for booking group classes, but didn't want to depend on store rules and pay 30% Apple commission. Built a progressive web app (PWA) — a site that installs on the phone like an ordinary app — with iOS Add to Home Screen, offline mode and push notifications.

Industry

Fitness studio chain (4 locations)

Stack

PWA · Workbox · IndexedDB · iOS

Timeline

~4-5 weeks

Outcome

1.2 MB vs 47 MB · 30% commission removed

Pain Point

Native iOS = store review on every change + 30% Apple commission + 47 MB install

The studio chain wanted a mobile app: group class schedule, booking, reminders 24 hours / 2 hours before training, visit history and memberships. Competitors built native iOS — but 30% Apple commission on in-app payments, $99/yr developer fee, and App Store review on every update, including text edits.

Second pain point: clients didn't want to "install yet another app". A competitor's native app got 2,100 installs in 14 days, but only 47% activated (opened more than once). Half the installs "lived" in the apps folder and were never opened.

The studios wanted to test new features quickly (e.g. video workouts), but the native flow required a fresh App Store review for every meaningful change — which blocked product velocity.

Solution

PWA with iOS-specific tuning for Add to Home Screen

PWA manifest + Service Worker (Workbox 7) — the app installs with one tap via "Share → Add to Home Screen" with full icon and splash screen
iOS-specific meta tags — apple-touch-icon for all iOS widths (180/167/152/120 px), `apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style`, `viewport-fit=cover` for notch on iPhone X+
Install prompt for iOS — iOS Safari doesn't show the install banner automatically, so we added our own "Install for notifications" prompt with a 2-screen walkthrough
Offline-first via IndexedDB — schedule, profile, training history, and membership cached locally. Viewable on the metro without network
Background sync — booking a class even offline. Service Worker saves the action and sends to the server as soon as network is available
WebPush + iOS 16.4+ support — push notifications for bookings and reminders 24h / 2h (with iOS 16.4 Apple finally supported WebPush in installed PWAs)
YClients embed + YooKassa — booking via YClients API, membership payment directly via YooKassa without 30% Apple commission

Stack

What's under the hood

Astro / Vite

build pipeline, SSG

Workbox 7

service worker + caching strategies

IndexedDB (idb)

offline-first data layer

PWA Asset Generator

icons for all iOS widths

Web Push API + VAPID

iOS 16.4+ push

YClients REST API

class booking

YooKassa

payment processing in RF

Sentry

production error monitoring

Results

PWA numbers vs native iOS

Install size

47 MB → 1.2 MB

39× smaller

Time-to-deploy update

via store review → 30 sec

no review per change

TTI on 4G

3.2 sec → 0.8 sec

−75%

Apple commission on payments

30% → 0%

saved

Activation (opened >1 time)

47% → 71%

+24 pp

Bookings via app over 2 mo

— → +47%

vs web form

Saved: ~₽890,000 in the first year on Apple commission (vs native) with the same UX and push notifications. New-feature deploys — 30 seconds via CI/CD, no blocking App Store review.

Where it fits

Who benefits from PWA over native

Booking services (fitness / salons / SPA / clinics) — UX like native, no App Store review, no 30% commission
E-commerce — push notifications for order status, offline catalog, fast install straight from the browser
B2B tools for teams — no App Store distribution needed, central deploy for all employees
EdTech / online schools — assignment delivery, offline lesson viewing, no App Store review for every update
Performance campaigns with PWA landing pages — the app installs instantly, with none of the native-SDK fingerprinting problems

Similar challenge in your project?

From technical brief to a live PWA that looks and behaves like an App Store app — 4-5 weeks. Pricing from ₽450,000 for a first version (booking + offline + push), from ₽600,000 for a full PWA with integrations.

Discuss a PWA

Deep dive:What AI implementation actually costs: the web-app-instead-of-native quote and what it covers