Summary

Tapcart is a leading mobile commerce platform that helps merchants build high-performing mobile apps. Since it was founded in 2017, it has grown from supporting a handful of budding merchant apps to powering thousands across iOS and Android. Before Bitrise, Tapcart relied on an in-house setup not built to scale with its changing needs. Switching to Bitrise has provided the team with the solid CI/CD foundation needed to accelerate builds, reduce maintenance, and free up engineering time to focus on the next phase of growth.

Challenge

In the early days of Tapcart when it was supporting around a dozen customers, the team relied on an in-house Continuous Integration (CI) setup which consisted of physical machines compiling builds locally and uploading to the app store one by one.

“The biggest challenge back then was build concurrency,” says Sahand Ansari, Director, Solutions and Support, at Tapcart. “Locally, you can only build one app at a time, maybe two, if you don’t mind your computer sounding like a jet engine. But we knew this wasn’t a sustainable solution.” Tapcart was gearing up for growth, but its legacy CI/CD wasn’t built to scale. It was highly manual, slow, and prone to errors. Worse still, it demanded constant attention which pulled the team’s focus away from innovating and delivering new value to customers.

“Our previous CI/CD process was incredibly tedious and time-consuming. We had to manually update keys in iOS and Android config files, set up Apple Pay and push notification certificates, and configure plist files for every app. A manual deployment took 30-50 minutes per app just to compile, depending on the speed of your computer. Then uploading to the app stores was extra time on top of all that. Obviously, if you're trying to scale up to thousands of apps, having a manual setup is not sustainable.”
_{Sahand Ansari, Director, Solutions and Support, at Tapcart}

Managing customer change requests was another challenge. Even minor updates like a new screenshot, icon, or description, required a full rebuild and upload, with a single icon taking on average 30-50 minutes to compile.

“In our early years, with just a dozen customers, even small requests were time-consuming. During busy seasons like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, when multiple customers wanted seasonal updates, we had to compile and upload every build individually, and just hope nothing went wrong. That pulled resources away from delivering more value, like helping customers drive sales.”
_{Sahand Ansari, Director, Solutions and Support, at Tapcart}

Additionally, human error was also a major risk due to the highly manual process the Tapcart team had to follow. “One wrong checkbox or config entry meant a 40-minute failed build. It was soul-destroying,” shared Sahand.

Solution

Bitrise products adopted:

Insights

Release Management

Build Cache

CI/CD

Tapcart looked at several CI/CD solutions, but Bitrise stood out from the start. With deep mobile expertise, strong documentation, and a respected presence in the developer community, it felt like the natural choice.

“Bitrise checked all the boxes we were looking for. The documentation was strong, the community feedback was positive, and as an industry leader in mobile, Bitrise felt like the right brand to align with. Most importantly, its tech stack was exactly what we needed, it was a huge step up from our humble Mac Minis.”
_{Sahand Ansari, Director, Solutions and Support, Tapcart}

The migration to Bitrise went smoothly, taking Tapcart from a fully manual process to running builds effortlessly in a fraction of the time, as Sahand shared: “Suddenly, we could review all those configurations easily and run a build with just a few clicks. It made my job so much easier and less stressful. Instead of worrying about build failures, we could focus on delivering more value to our customers.”

Tapcart started off using Bitrise for iOS only but shortly after expanded to using it for Android development too, and this is where they noticed the biggest change and benefits. 

“If you plotted it on a graph, you’d see a steep jump when we expanded Bitrise from iOS to Android. From that point on, we could deploy to both the App Store and Google Play simultaneously with almost no extra effort. It was a big win for us.”
_{Sahand Ansari, Director, Solutions and Support, Tapcart}

Results

“Moving to Bitrise has given us more time back to focus on customer success, rather than all the technical aspects of the build process. Our goal has always been to make the Apple and Google build process feel seamless for customers: you request an update, and it’s live within an hour. That’s the “magic” we want them to experience and Bitrise helps us deliver that.”
_{Sahand Ansari, Director, Solutions and Support, Tapcart}

• 70% faster mobile builds

  Builds that once took 50 minutes now finish in 15 minutes or less, allowing Tapcart to run more apps in less time and increase efficiency.

  “With Bitrise, our build times have improved dramatically. Since upgrading to the latest machines, the cost-to-time ratio really hit a sweet spot, sub-15-minute iOS and Android builds are now the norm, and the experience is super smooth,” shares Sahand.
• Near-100% reduction in manual effort

  Asset updates, configuration changes, and app uploads that once took 30-50 minutes per app are now handled in just two clicks, freeing the team to focus on driving customer success.

  “The biggest value is the time saving for sure. We don’t have to sit and watch builds anymore, which means we are free to focus on what matters first, which ultimately is helping our customers succeed and grow revenue through beautifully designed, high-performing apps,” shares Sahand.
• Seamless maintenance for 1,500+ apps

  With Bitrise, Tapcart removes the burden of App Store and Google Play operations for merchants. Every 2-3 weeks, when new OS versions require updates, Tapcart can trigger bulk builds across 1,500+ apps with just customer credentials. What was once unscalable manual work is now fully automated, keeping every app continuously maintained and up to date.
• Hundreds of parallel builds ensure faster updates

  Previously limited to one or two local builds at a time, Tapcart now runs hundreds in parallel, enabling large-scale deployments and updates for its growing customer base.

  “Bitrise lets us run hundreds of builds concurrently, so we can update entire customer segments at once instead of one by one. That saves us huge amounts of time, which, next to revenue, is the most valuable thing a business can have,” shares Sahand.
• Future-proof scalability and reliability

  With Bitrise, Tapcart has a solid foundation to handle growth, plus APIs to automate evolving needs. This scalability ensures continuous reliability as the business expands.

  “From a scaling standpoint, Bitrise has been huge. We don’t have to worry about capacity or reliability; with Bitrise we have a solid foundation and the APIs to automate what we need to as our requirements change,” shares Sahand.

The future

“Bitrise plays a huge part in helping us achieve our goals. We’ve never had to second-guess whether the platform could handle our scale, we know it will. As we continue to evolve, we see Bitrise becoming even more woven into our offering, which ultimately means an even better experience for our merchants.”
_{Sahand Ansari, Director, Solutions and Support, Tapcart}

Tapcart continues to view Bitrise as a strategic partner that gives them an edge in a highly competitive ecommerce market. As Sahand shares, “With Bitrise we get early access and as a leader in the CI/CD space, Bitrise also gives us direct access to best practices and expert insights. So, all of these things combined with the platform itself really help give us a competitive edge.”

Looking ahead, the company is focused on making its platform more extensible, exploring new capabilities like loyalty messaging, push notifications, and other features that drive more value for merchants. As Sahand explains, “Instead of only saying, ‘we upload and manage your build and provide a CMS,’ we want to layer in additional tooling and functionality that helps merchants launch, promote, and grow their apps more effectively.”

The long-term goal is to enable merchants to self-manage their builds. Bitrise will be core to delivering that vision, powering the backend, automating the build process, and giving merchants status updates so they always feel in control. As Sahand shares, “Ultimately, this means a smoother experience and the ability to deliver even more value to our merchants in the future.”

Ready to kickstart your mobile growth like Tapcart? Let’s chat.