{"id":17813,"date":"2017-04-25T16:48:41","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T20:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=17813"},"modified":"2017-05-08T13:39:58","modified_gmt":"2017-05-08T17:39:58","slug":"apple-cuts-app-and-iap-affiliate-commissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/25\/apple-cuts-app-and-iap-affiliate-commissions\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Cuts App and IAP Affiliate Commissions"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Voorhees<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>, MacRumors<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Today, Apple announced that it is reducing the commissions it pays on apps and In-App Purchases from 7% to 2.5% effective May 1st. The iTunes Affiliate Program pays a commission from Apple’s portion of the sale of apps and other media when a purchase is made with a link that contains the affiliate credentials of a member of the program. Anyone can join, but the Affiliate Program is used heavily by websites that cover media sold by Apple and app developers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Via John Gruber<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Everything about this strikes me as strange, including the mere one week notice and the severity of the cut. It’s not a small reduction — it’s effectively been cut by two thirds. Note too that Apple is only reducing the affiliate commission for apps and in-app purchases — movies, music, and books are all still at 7 percent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Brett Terpstra<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I’m guessing some sites you read are going to be showing you a few more ads. Some may shut down completely. I won’t be one of them, but I’ll be going out to eat less often until I replace the revenue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Michael Love<\/a>:<\/p>\n

If your goal is to get more people into your ecosystem then it’s kind of counterproductive to pay them less $ for linking to you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If they’re dropping % simply to make a little bit more Services revenue we may truly be entering the no-more-free-soda-at-Microsoft phase.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

It sure seems like a bean counter decision. Some are speculating that it will make sense in light of a forthcoming drastic reduction to Apple’s 30% cut from developers. But if that were the case, you’d think Apple would lead with the good news.<\/p>\n\n

Update (2017-04-27): Dr. Drang<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

But Apple’s not the only online seller to cut commissions. A couple of months ago Amazon changed its commission structure, and I was a little surprised when none of the stories about Apple’s cut mentioned that.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2017-05-04): Chance Miller<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

While some clarity from Apple would be nice, it seems like last month’s statement was largely misinterpreted and that app affiliate rates are staying at 7 percent, while in-app rates are dropping to 2.5 percent.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2017-05-07): Ric Molina<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Because I never saw a clear mention of Mac Apps, I decided to contact the iTunes Affiliate team. Turns out, not only are Mac Apps not impacted. iOS Apps aren’t impacted either.<\/p>\n

The change in affiliate commissions applies to in-app purchases only, at least according to their support team[…]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2017-05-08): Apple<\/a> (via John Voorhees):<\/p>\n

We’d like to clarify some changes being made to the Affiliate Program. Commissions for all iOS in-app purchases will be reduced from 7% to 2.5% globally, and all other content types (including music, movies, books, paid iOS apps and TV) will remain at the current 7%.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

This contradicts the plain wording of the original announcement (“commissions for all app and in-app content”), so either there was a drafting error or they are backtracking.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Voorhees (Hacker News, MacRumors): Today, Apple announced that it is reducing the commissions it pays on apps and In-App Purchases from 7% to 2.5% effective May 1st. The iTunes Affiliate Program pays a commission from Apple’s portion of the sale of apps and other media when a purchase is made with a link that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[354,91,101,522,31,30,39,994],"class_list":["post-17813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-advertising","tag-appstore","tag-business","tag-inapppurchase","tag-ios","tag-mac","tag-macappstore","tag-media"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17813"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17932,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17813\/revisions\/17932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}