nicoinu

Posted on Aug 20

Cutting store commission from 30% to 15%: what each application actually asks

#android #ios #mobile #startup

Apple and Google both have a program that drops in-app purchase commission from 30% to 15%. Neither one is automatic. If you do not apply, you keep paying 30%.

This is the walkthrough: which page to open, what you get asked, and when the rate actually changes. Everything here comes from the official documentation and from the application screens themselves.

The rates are current as of August 2026. They change, so check the official pages before you act on any number.

1. Where the discount actually applies

What you sell	App Store	Google Play
One-time in-app purchases, paid apps	30% → 15% after applying	30% → 15% after enrolling
Subscriptions, first year	30% → 15% after applying	15% either way
Subscriptions, second year onward	15% either way	15% either way

On the App Store, a subscriber who accumulates more than one year of paid service in the same subscription group already moves you to 15%, program or not.

Applying to the program gets you that 15% from the first billing cycle instead of the thirteenth month.

On Google Play, auto-renewing subscriptions are 15% regardless of enrollment. The fee table spells it out: 15% "for automatically renewing subscription products purchased by subscribers, regardless of revenue earned by the developer each year."

That was not always true. Until December 2021, Google also charged 30% for the first year and 15% from month 13. On January 1, 2022 the distinction disappeared. If you remember Play subscriptions being 30%, that is where the memory comes from.

So on Google, enrollment matters for everything that is not a subscription.

Both programs cap out at 1 million USD per year.

One detail worth getting right: Apple does not count your sales. It counts proceeds, meaning what is left after Apple's commission and certain taxes and adjustments. That is the number you see paid out in App Store Connect.

Your sales can be above 1 million USD while your proceeds are still below it. Check the payouts rather than assuming you are over the line.

2. Applying on the App Store

Only the Account Holder can submit this. Other roles cannot reach the form at all, so if someone else holds that role, sort that out first.

2.1 Accept the paid apps agreement first

Open "Agreements, Tax, and Banking" in App Store Connect and check that the latest Paid Applications Agreement (Schedule 2 to the Apple Developer Program License Agreement) is accepted.

Accept it there if it is not. The first question on the application form is this exact check, and you cannot move past it otherwise.

2.2 Answer the two questions

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/

The form asks two questions and nothing else.

The first is the agreement from 2.1. Pick "Yes, I have accepted." and continue.

The second asks about Associated Developer Accounts. An account counts as associated if any of these are true.

You hold more than 50% of its ownership or shares
It holds more than 50% of your ownership or shares
You have ultimate decision-making authority over it
It has ultimate decision-making authority over you

For each one, you provide the name, Team ID, Account Holder email address, and a description of the relationship.

If there are none, say so and submit. That is the whole application.

Caution

When you do have associated accounts, the 1 million USD threshold is measured against their combined proceeds. Apple states that if your organization controls other accounts, or is controlled by one, the collective proceeds must stay under 1 million USD to qualify.

App transfers are allowed, but the proceeds for that calendar year attach to both the account that initiates the transfer and the account that accepts it. Moving revenue to a second account does not lower the combined total.

2.3 Wait for it to take effect

Approval is not the same as the rate changing. Your proceeds are adjusted 15 days after the end of the fiscal month in which the enrollment is approved.

Apple's own example: approved on February 10, 2022, adjusted starting March 14, 2022.

The clock starts at approval, not submission, and Apple's fiscal months do not line up with calendar months. How long approval takes is not published anywhere.

3. Enrolling on Google Play

This happens on the Play Console page at Developer account > Associated developer accounts.

Without a payments profile you cannot open that page at all. If you have not started monetizing yet, set the payments profile up first.

3.1 Create an account group

Click "Create account group" and enter a name. Use the legal name for a company, or your developer name for a personal account.

Click "Create account group" again to confirm. Whichever account you used becomes the main developer account for the group.

What if you only own one developer account? You still have to create the group. Enrollment in the 15% tier requires one.

3.2 Answer the two questions

Creating the group takes you straight to two questions. Does your legal entity own any other Play Console developer accounts, and does any other account publish apps under branding similar to yours.

Answer no to both, hit Save, and you are done.

If you answer yes, you add the other accounts by developer account ID or by the package name of one of their apps. The account ID is on the Developer account page, and package names sit under the app name on the All apps page.

Warning

Adding an account sends an approval request to that account's admins. The group is not complete until every associated account agrees to join, and you cannot enroll in the 15% tier while any request is still pending.

Requests you sent show up under "Sent requests" on the same page.

A developer account can only belong to one group at a time. Removing an account from a group can cost it certain benefits, including the 15% enrollment, so do not reshuffle groups casually.

3.3 Enroll in the 15% tier

Once the group is complete, a card appears on the same page offering enrollment in the 15% service fee. "Review and enroll" opens the confirmation screen.

That screen tells you the 15% fee applies to the combined annual sales of every developer account in the group, up to 1 million USD, and lists the accounts it covers.

Google applies it from the enrollment date. There is no waiting period like Apple's. The screen says it directly: enroll after July 1, 2021 and the program starts on the day you enroll.

4. What happens when you pass 1 million USD

On Google Play, once the account group's combined revenue passes 1 million USD, every account in the group pays 30% for the rest of that year. The count is per calendar year, so it resets on January 1.

The App Store also returns you to the standard rate for the rest of the year. The difference is how you get back.

Falling below 1 million USD is not enough on its own. You re-qualify for 15% the year after that. Cross the line in 2026, drop below it in 2027, and you are back at 15% in 2028.

5. Google Play's fee model is changing, and in some places it already has

Google announced a new service fee structure in March 2026. It is rolling out by region: EEA, the UK, and the US switched on June 30, 2026, Australia and Japan follow on September 30, 2026, South Korea on December 31, 2026, and everywhere else on September 30, 2027.

Under the new model, the rate depends on whether a transaction comes from a "new install" or an "existing install."

What decides it is not the buyer but the date that user first installed the app from Google Play, or first updated it from Google Play. On or after the launch date in their region makes it a new install.

New installs look like this. Billing fees are charged separately.

	Non-recurring	Recurring	First purchase of a paid app
Standard	20%	10%	20%
Enrolled in the new apps and games programs	15%	10%	15%
First 1 million USD of annual revenue	10%	10%	10%

Existing installs move the standard rate to 25% and the program rate to 20%. The row for the first 1 million USD of annual revenue stays at 10% in both tables.

Caution

Transactions that go through Google Play billing carry a billing fee on top of the service fee. It is 5% in the US, the UK, and the EEA. For every other region, including Japan and Australia, Google says the rate will be announced later.

If you are modeling your net revenue for a region that has not launched yet, that number is still blank.

Subscriptions land in the 10% row of the new table. Look at the US, UK, and EEA numbers, though, and the 5% billing fee brings the total back to 15%, which is exactly where it is today. Whether the change is a discount depends on the billing fee in your region.

Google has not said whether the "first 1 million USD" row is decided by the existing 15% service fee tier enrollment.

6. Before you start

[ ] Who the Account Holder is on the Apple side
[ ] Whether the latest Paid Applications Agreement is accepted
[ ] Whether you have a Google payments profile
[ ] If you added associated accounts, whether they have all approved

One more thing that is easy to miss: enrolling with the stores does not update your analytics.

If you use something like RevenueCat, change the commission setting in the dashboard too. Otherwise your reported net revenue keeps getting calculated at 30%. Their blog post covers the settings.

https://www.revenuecat.com/blog/engineering/small-business-program

Apple is an agreement plus two questions. Google is a group plus two questions. Neither takes long, and neither happens on its own.