Selling Outside of the Mac App Store
But once the Mac App Store hit, I transitioned all my apps to it pretty much right away. It’s just so convenient: no license creation, no license verification (apart from receipt validation, but that has become more convenient recently), easy updating, no handling of payments, invoices, refunds, and the potential of getting featured to lots and lots of users.
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Besides all that, it was high time I set up a way to also sell my apps outside of the Mac App Store. Without a licensing system for my apps, I’ve been unable to participate in software-bundles and/or collections. Lots of companies and corporations cannot purchase apps from the Mac App Store due to policies. Individuals who want to purchase my apps for work are unable to do so because of those same policies. I also am unable to give individual discounts to customers when need be. And while I am a strong proponent of the Mac App Store, I also believe in giving people a choice.
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A “Merchant of Record” is a company that handles payments, invoicing, refunds, taxes, etc for indie software developers and other businesses.
There are actually quite a few to choose from: FastSpring, PayPal, Paddle, Stripe, and Gumroad, just to name a few.
He went with Paddle.
Previously:
- The App Store Era Must End
- Paddle’s Single-Click Apple Pay
- FastSpring Store Unexpectedly Offline
- Stripe Acquires Lemon Squeezy
- Mac App Rejected for Web Site Link
- ScreenFloat 2
- FastSpring Risk Screening
- Paddle Billing
- How to Accept Payments for Your Digital Products
- Piezo’s Life Outside the Mac App Store
- 100 Days Without the App Store
- Make Money Outside the Mac App Store
- Sketch Leaving the Mac App Store
- More International Taxes on Software Sales
- The Benefits of Selling Software Outside the Mac App Store
Update (2024-12-19): Matthias Gansrigler:
Paddle Billing is very obviously targeted at recurring payments (“subscriptions”) rather than one-time purchases, underlined by the fact that Paddle Classic did have direct support for creating and/or handling license keys, whereas Paddle Billing does not.
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The documentation in general is very good and detailed, but it isn’t outright obvious how all the pieces fit and work together. It feels like each piece is described nicely on its own, but how it all fits into a whole flow of a user purchasing something is up for the developer to figure out.
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If you want to keep track of activations, you need a way to do that (a database and an “API” to manage all the necessary info), and will have to have a way to reset individual or all activations of a license: if a customer gets a new Mac, they might want to move their registration over from the old one, for example.
When it comes to commercial licenses, I figured administrators wouldn’t want employees to be able to mess with a copy’s registration, so those require a “key” to be reset, which is individually created and sent alongside the license keys.
Update (2024-12-20): Matthias Gansrigler:
Having implemented the backend and licensing mechanism, there was still an important part missing: a way to download and install updates for the app.
Update (2025-01-06): Matthias Gansrigler (Mastodon, Twitter):
I’m sorry for the lack of updates to ScreenFloat recently, but it’s being held hostage by the Mac App Store’s App Review team with unreasonable demands again. I hate this. I love the Mac App Store, but stuff like this is just stupid.
9 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
I believe Stripe is actually _not_ a Merchant of Record. They are a just a Payment Processor, so you eg. might have to file taxes in the countries you sell in.
I believe Frederik is correct.
Lemon Squeezy, whom Stripe purchased, is a merchant of record according to https://www.lemonsqueezy.com/reporting/merchant-of-record
Is anyone using LM as a Paddle or FastSpring alternative? I made a few purchases on their platform to test the customer perspective and thought it was a good experience.
@bob I couldn’t agree more. The Mac App Store is a restrictive ecosystem that stifles creativity and innovation in favor of Apple’s profit margins. Developers who choose to sell through the Mac App Store contribute to a cycle that undermines our profession by normalizing Apple’s monopolistic control over distribution and pricing.
By subjecting themselves to Apple’s onerous 30% cut, opaque app review processes, and limitations on functionality (like sandboxing), these developers are not only diminishing their own potential revenue and creative freedom but are also enabling a system that prioritizes Apple’s interests over those of the Mac community. Worse yet, the App Store’s emphasis on discoverability often results in a race to the bottom in terms of pricing, devaluing software as a whole.
The Mac App Store serves as a walled garden that benefits Apple almost exclusively, while developers who rely on direct sales or alternative methods retain their independence and the ability to build meaningful relationships with their users. If we want to preserve the health of our profession and the integrity of the Mac software ecosystem, we need to stop supporting this model and advocate for alternatives that empower developers rather than exploit them.
I agree with Matthew's comments, and even putting those issues to the side, I don't see how anyone can stand using the Mac app store given the onerous restrictions it puts on apps by requiring "app sandbox". I never, ever use that on any of my apps as a matter of principle, and many of the apps I've made could never function with it, so that already excludes me from ever using the Mac app store for distribution in the first place.
Also, I have a question about it that I figure the reader base here is qualified to answer:
Are there any APIs or features (perhaps Safari app or web extensions) that are only available when distributing through the Mac app store? Or does "ad hoc" distribution still allow everything the Mac app store does?
That's infuriating, and I expect that list of things that require the Mac app store to continue to grow. It's clear to me that the macOS trajectory is to eventually be as locked down as iOS. Maybe on paper it won't technically get that far, but if enough of it is locked away behind their various security restrictions that you simply can't expect every day users to turn off, then those features are as good as locked anyway. And that doesn't even address the growing bugginess and poor UI design.
It's so disheartening how quickly macOS went from being my favorite operating system to one that it pains me to use.
I sell both thru the MAS and thru Paddle (used to be FastSpring, and Kagi before that).
MAS brings in more customers - I sell about twice as much in MAS than over my website.
However, my apps are Shareware when downloaded from my website, so people do not have to pay before trying it out, which isn't an option in the MAS.
Also, critics of the MAS should stop arguing about the 30% fee to Apple - us small devs usually only pay 15% now. And I'd be very glad if I ever make it to where I have to pay 30% because that means I'm making a million a year. One can dream...
