Apple gave its arm to twist and ended up understanding a certain part of the controversy generated by the 30% commission that comes from in-app purchases of those applications downloaded from the App Store. The company has officially announced that it will reduce this rate to 15%, but it will not be in all cases. We tell you more about the subject below.
Precedents of the controversy
Parallel to the judicial investigation that is being carried out in the United States to Apple along with Google, Facebook and Amazon for alleged monopolistic practices, the firm led by Tim Cook this year faced strong accusations by some developers because of the famous commission . In some cases it will even end up in court, as is the case with the developers of Fortnite (Epic Games).
Precisely the latter raised the biggest stir when, without any justification, they included in-app purchases in their games outside the company’s system through which they had to go. This severely violated App Store regulations, so the company took action and removed the game from its store. Later he even ended up deleting their developer account. Google also did the same in its Android Play Store.
Small Business Program and 15% commission
After the controversial public battle between Apple and Epic Games, of which Californians never made official statements, it was learned from close sources that they were studying the possibility of reducing the commission of 30% in some cases. Today this news is already official and the conditions to qualify for this Small Business Program have been specified in its literal translation. All of this valid as of 2021.
Apple indicates that developers who bill less than $ 1 million will only be able to pay this 15% commission on in-app purchases, while those who bill that amount or more will continue with the same 30%. Developers should be accepting one or another plan annually depending on their billing in the previous year.
Although there will still be many companies that are not satisfied, the truth is that this seems to be a program more than pleasant and that it will be an important benefit for small developers who until now had to pay double for the subscribers obtained through the iOS apps. In fact, the CEO of the company, Tim Cook, has shown on many occasions like this the amount of jobs and income that the App Store has created for thousands of people.