Saturday, August 21, 2021

App Store Fee Reductions and Apple Strategy Tax

Harley Finkelstein:

To our partners: on Aug 1st we are removing all revenue share on your first $1M. That means you will keep 100% of your first $1M when you sell on @Shopify’s app store.

The best part? At the end of every year, the numbers reset. Every single year, your 1st million is all yours.

Nilay Patel:

After the antitrust bills and the Epic case:

  • Microsoft has reworked Windows store terms to take 0
  • Facebook announced 0 percent on creator payments
  • Twitter announced lower rate for Super Follows
  • Shopify lowering rates

Kind of amazing to see

Abner Li (via James O’Leary):

In exchange for building apps on all those Google platforms and integrating with specific features/APIs, these media companies see Google’s cut on user purchases drop from 30% to 15%. This is independent of the upcoming change where Google is reducing its commission to 15% on the first $1 million in revenue for all – but primarily to the benefit of small/medium – Android developers. Apps in the Play Media Experience Program have to continue using the Play Store’s in-app billing system.

Michael Love:

Honestly this $1M business feels like it’s almost turning into a subsidy for cross platform development; you want to do exactly $1M in revenue (taking care not to go even $1 over that on iOS) on as many platforms as possible rather than focusing on just one.

Seriously, if you’re an iOS developer with a successful app, Apple is effectively threatening you with financial penalties if you reinvest your profits in growing that business instead of investing them in an Android port.

Thomas Tempelmann:

So, a “small” app maker is planning to go out of business. He has plenty of app that others could adopt and continue to develop. However, any established small dev would be punished by doing that because (s)he’d lose the 15% Apple commission and go back to 30% :(

So, any product that is not highly profitable will thereby die out, even if it were to be offered for free, just because of how Apple treats us small businesses. So wrong.

Sean Hollister (via Damien Petrilli):

If Apple pursued its original idea, the App Store Small Business Program might have only given developers credit to spend on Apple’s own App Store search ads — not 15 percent back in their pockets.

Jeff Johnson:

Plus there are no search ads in the Mac App Store.

Previously:

1 Comment RSS · Twitter

The way Apple handles the one million is so silly I can't see them not changing it.

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