Apple Proposes 15% External Purchase Fee
Apple has again failed to earn a stay for fee calculations in its ongoing legal fight with Epic Games. Apple's case will be heard by the Supreme Court in the term that begins in October, and Apple asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to pause proceedings until then, but the court said no [PDF].
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan today granted Apple a one-day stay in its legal fight with Epic Games, giving Apple more time to outline the fees it wants to charge developers for linking out to purchase options on the web.
Apple tried to freeze the entire thing while they appealed to the Supreme Court – and the Supreme Court denied the freeze. But they didn’t deny hearing the case – yet. That’s why they’re pausing the proceedings for now (after Judge Gonzalez Rogers denied the same request), while they weigh Apple’s appeal. But before they do that, they’re basically likely to decide today – again, it was just a 24-hour delay – whether they should grant a longer stay. Presumably if the court thinks they’re unlikely to hear Apple’s appeal, they may not grant that longer stay. Or if they think Apple filing their number won’t harm their business, they’ll let it proceed. But Apple will argue that if the longer stay isn’t granted, it will cause major harm to their business because again, it will effectively end the App Store cut as we know it.
Juli Clover (Engadget, The Verge):
Apple today submitted a court-ordered proposal outlining the commission it believes is reasonable to collect from U.S. apps that link to purchase options outside of the App Store.
Apple is asking for half of its commission on standard apps, so apps that would pay 30 percent for an in-app purchase would pay 15 percent when linking to a web purchase option. Small Business Program participants that would normally pay 15 percent would pay 5 percent.
[…]
The appeals court suggested the commission could be limited to the direct costs of facilitating link-outs, and under that approach, the fee would be zero. Apple says a zero commission would not reflect the value that it provides developers, and its suggested commission gives it fair compensation for the App Store platform.
[…]
The district court will now evaluate Apple’s fee proposal and hear a response from Epic Games , and Apple will need to implement the fee the court sets.
Unlike cost-only based commissions, Apple’s revenue-based commissions incentivize continued investment. Apple charges developers a $99 annual fee for the Apple Developer Program. May 17, 2021 Trial Tr. at 2762:21–2763:13. This modest fee—designed to prevent fraud and expressly not intended to compensate Apple for the use of its IP-protected tools, technologies, and services (id.)—allows developers to build apps using Apple’s offerings and deliver experiences to iOS and iPadOS users worldwide.
The annual developer fee is nominal. Apple relies on percentage-based commissions to recoup and profit from its investments. See id. ¶¶ 87–93. Apple is incentivized to invest in IP- protected tools, technologies, and services that generate revenue for developers (and benefit users).
[…]
Dr. Carlton explains that “reduc[ing] Apple’s incentive to invest and provide the technology and services that benefit users and developers” would harm users and developers, as well as Apple.
I like the part where Apple’s expert argues that its normal commission rates are so high that it would still be profitable for developers to pay the proposed linking commissions on top of what they would pay to Stripe or Paddle. In other words, paying Apple for “IP” almost twice what it admits the other companies charge for “full-service, turnkey payment processing.”
If the point [of the $99] is just to prevent fraud, why do we need to keep paying $99 yearly FOREVER? Is 10 years not enough to prove I’m not a fraud?!?
If the fee doesn’t help pay for Apple IP, then it’s even more blatantly unfair that a minority of apps have to pay for ALL apps to access Apple IP. Free apps, no matter how big or how much $ they make via ads, get access to Apple IP from OUR REVENUE CUT, and not even their $99 counts.
That’s what that enormous hardware margin from customers is already supposed to be paying for — Apple IP! In the early 00’s, I gladly paid the “Apple tax” (PowerBook G4) to get access to the Mac OS X software/ecosystem, including all the Unix and dev tools. I’m not sure why anyone thinks that double-dipping is fine on all the non-Mac platforms, App Store or not.
Jeff Johnson (2):
Schiller’s [previous] testimony about the previous program is extremely misleading, because the new program began in 2008 at the same time as the App Store, so there was no previous iOS developer program, and Mac Developer ID did not begin until 2012, so Apple Developer Program membership was not actually required to distribute Mac apps!
Fourth, it appears that Steve Jobs was wrong: the $99 fee didn’t prevent developers from flooding the App Store with a lot of junk.
I want to quote another remarkable passage from Schiller’s testimony, again with questions from Apple’s own lawyer.
Q. And Mr. Jobs says, “And also just to make it a little clearer, we don’t intend to make money off the App Store. I mean, we don’t make a lot of money off iTunes, and the split with the music companies is about the same, so in the case of the iTunes Music Store, we give all the money to the content owners, and we are basically giving all the money to the developers here. And if that 30 percent of it pays for running the store, well, that will be great, but we just want to create a very efficient channel for these developers to reach every single iPhone user.” Is that a statement that Mr. Jobs made back in March 2008?
A. He did.
[…]
I won’t quote the following passage in which Schiller testifies about his internal email suggesting that Apple limit itself to $1 billion per year in profit from the App Store, hand-waving away the suggestion as merely “spurring conversation.” Of course the email also seems to contradict Schiller’s (absurd) testimony that Apple does not specifically calculate profit from the App Store, only company-wide profit. Apple’s public financial statements also appear to contradict Schiller’s claims.
Previously:
- TabControl Scam and the App Review Queue
- Apple Asks Supreme Court to Review Epic Ruling
- External Purchase Fee Stay Reversed
- Lower App Store Fees in China
- Lower Google Play Store Fees and Registered App Stores
- Apple Granted Stay Over External Purchase Fee
- “Reasonably Necessary” External Purchase Fee
- Testimony on External Purchase Fee and Scare Screens
- App Store External Purchase Fee: 27%
Update (2026-08-20): Marcus Mendes:
On the same day, Apple submitted another motion, asking Judge Gonzalez Rogers to order the parties to attend a settlement conference.
[…]
Epic has now responded to Apple’s motion, stating that although the company “has been, and remains today, willing to entertain any direct approach from Apple with a serious settlement proposal that would introduce competition and benefit all developers,” it “does not believe the prospects of such settlement would be meaningfully advanced through referral to a settlement conference at this juncture.”
Update (2026-09-03): Marcus Mendes:
In addition to the proposal itself, Apple submitted supporting expert reports, alongside a request to seal portions of those filings containing financial data, link-out adoption estimates, developer survey results, and other information Apple considers commercially sensitive.
Epic has now filed an opposition to Apple’s request, arguing “Apple again seeks to conceal information from the public and unnecessarily hamper proceedings.”
12 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
There is simply no way to interpet this other than “greedy rich company wants to be richer”. There is NO value provided by Apple here, and one could argue any solution they come up with may actually *reduce* value (e.g. if they require some scary prompt UI for every link instead of just normal behavior). Apple of today seems to have no problem making experiences worse to get a bit more coin.
There are many ways that I, *alone*, could spend MY money to increase the number of users *I* have. Apple would benefit from that scenario (% per purchase), and then wants to benefit *again* when each of those users that *I* paid to obtain, decides to make more purchases that happened to start in the app?
Or consider, Apple does not know why the user decided to purchase; maybe they saw something elsewhere, made a note of it, and later went into the app to initiate the purchase. That is mere coicidence, that they could have proceeded with the purchase from the web but decided to wait and remembered later while in the app; so Apple gets a cut?
This company already has lost my support in many ways (and I would evangelize for it back when the company was literally about to go under). I refuse to play their games.
I continue to maintain that so long as Apple has a different policy for digital vs physical purchases vs reader apps vs ad supported apps this amounts to rent-seeking extortion and should be rejected. I see no reason for a fee here when something like uber or Netflix uses the same APIs and the same amount or more App Store review bandwidth and download bandwidth is exempt from a fee. It’s all an arbitrary attempt to protect a revenue stream where they barely have to do any work. Why don’t ads that are monetized with ads required to give Apple 15% of their revenue? They also use the same APIs and rely on App Store hosting. Apple is doing the same amount of work in both cases but if you collect revenue with a direct purchase somehow that magically means Apple deserves 15%?
I wish governments would grow a spine and tell Apple that they aren’t entitled to anything they don’t facilitate.
> Apple charges developers a $99 annual fee for the Apple Developer Program. This modest fee—designed to prevent fraud and expressly not intended to compensate Apple for the use of its IP-protected tools, technologies, and services (id.)—allows developers to build apps using Apple’s offerings and deliver experiences to iOS and iPadOS users worldwide.
Quoting Apple own website:
"Membership provides the tools, resources, and support you need to develop and distribute apps and games, including access to app services, testing tools, app analytics, and more."
So yeah no, the developer fee does pay for everything. Also Apple is forcing through their monopoly to use their tech / app store and then ask to be paid for it? How is that legal again?
If the tech stack and deployment wasn't a monopoly, everybody would be free to make apps without even touching Apple frameworks like a lot of people do on desktop lately.
"Schiller’s (absurd)" = redundant. Phil the Schill is a windbag, of the worst kind. He might have, at one time, been a good engineer at Apple, but all I have been able to see since he rose to prominence under Jobs' and after his passing is an outlandish Dilbert character. He clearly believes he inherited the 'Reality Distortion Field', but no such luck. Nothing to be proud of, and certainly not worthy of his position. Unfortunately, I don't believe he's unique in this Exec Team; it was my hypothesis back in the day that Jobs was purposefully undermining the Exec Team that would come after him, such that his legacy would overshadow Apple's history in perpetuity. Jobs was THAT petty, that narcissistic. He unfortunately died before it happened, and Tim Cook went on to exceed expectations and grew Apple a massive pile of wealth, using the tactics Jobs had fostered/inculcated but never fully embraced (since that wasn't *his* role in 'the plan'). And the Apple community has since suffered from it, largely from ego-driven own-fart-sniffers like Phil the Schill, Eddie Cue, and Jony Ive. I don't know John Ternus, don't know enough about John Ternus, and from insiders I know I don't have any better feeling on John Ternus… which is somewhat worrying. I -hope- that Ternus—having 'grown up' under all of this, may have grown beyond it—is going to be an 'outside' to the politics but an 'insider' to the older, superior Apple culture, and will steer Apple back to a more customer/community-friendly and less overtly greedy position. We shall see.
Looks like the EU has caved:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-announces-changes-for-apps-in-the-european-union/
And then there are people like me who pay the $99 per year so I can access the Apple Music API and do fun stuff with it -- because for some reason Apple only allows "developers" to access that API on the web. So it's like $98 of pure profit for them because I don't make apps and don't need human app review etc.
> "And then there are people like me who pay the $99 per year so I can access the Apple Music API and do fun stuff with it...."
Trust me, I can be as cynical of Apple as most. So tell me @Ben_G, what is your point? That Apple should never have any private APIs? Should they make them available for free? I mean, they did back in the 1980s. They even proudly published the source code of their OS!
But then others came along.... IBM, who never thought their DOS was worth much so they partnered with MSFT. Ah, Linux. That is so 1990s. I'm pretty sure you mean nothing like that. Ok, how about "people like you"....
First, - and I mean this sincerely - good for you! You found something that you find fun! And it only costs you US$99 annually. Maybe Apple gets 99% profit on your annual subscription, but (a) that's your choice and (b) you haven't actually said that you don't get any profit from accessing this API that you didn't develop. Maybe use it for personal enjoyment, maybe you use it to make MP3 mixes and sell them. Don't know.
Speaking for me... I wish I didn't pay the annual fee to Apple. I remember in the early 2000s paying about 20x (think US$2000) more annual for MSFT software. I'm now retired, and long ago found that I get personal enjoyment from making apps that use custom CoreImage effects. I get under $200 profit from these apps - but like you could, my apps are i the iOS App Store, unless the "Apple Music API" is a reason for rejection.
It's also fun to pound criticism on Apple. After all, they are global, make overly large profits, really screwed up with macOS 26, are overly bombarding their users with ads, allow apps that clearly do not belong in their walled-garden App Stores.... But is this anything different than Facebook- er, Meta? Google - er, Alphabet? Ah, X - sorry, Tesla, no... SpaceX? Oh yeah, maybe Microsoft? How about the soon to come out with their IPO - OpenAI?
Long story short? I'm glad you found something you could enjoy. Hope it's not ruined by Apple having greed that knows no bounds. Life is too short for that!
"That Apple should never have any private APIs? Should they make them available for free? I mean, they did back in the 1980s"
Yes, Apple should very obviously make private APIs available for free. I mean, how is that even a question?
What Ben is talking about isn't a private API, though. It's an API Apple hosts on the Internet, which is why I'm with Apple in this case. They're actually providing a real service, and it's fine that they're charging for it.
> So tell me @Ben_G, what is your point?
That I already pay for Apple One Premier, and Apple Music is one of those services, so I should have access to the API so I can be more in control of my music listening experience? Having to pay $8.25 per month for that is ridiculous -- it's almost the price of Apple Music itself. It's especially insulting because the API is actually kind of crappy and limiting compared to what it could/should do (like many Apple services).
@Ben G
> And then there are people like me who pay the $99 per year so I can access the Apple Music API and do fun stuff with it
I’m curious, what fun stuff are you doing? =)
Am curious too. I just use the $25 iTunes Match to get access to the cloud library. And they cant even throw in video syncing with that, it’s just for audio.
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“ If the point [of the $99] is just to prevent fraud, why do we need to keep paying $99 yearly FOREVER? Is 10 years not enough to prove I’m not a fraud?!?”
Trust but verify.
