Everything You Think You Know About the App Store’s 30% Cut Is Wrong

The 30% App Store commission is, depending on who you ask, a monopolistic toll, a fair platform fee, or a number that bears little relationship to what most developers actually pay. All three statements contain truth. None of them is the complete picture.

The actual distribution of App Store commissions is not 30%. It is 30% for developers earning more than $1 million annually, which represents a small fraction of total developers and a majority of total revenue. Developers earning under $1 million pay 15% through the Small Business Program. Many categories of transactions — reader apps, apps using alternative payment providers in the EU — pay lower rates or no commission at all.

The average commission paid across all App Store transactions, weighted by revenue, is approximately 22% by most independent estimates. The median commission paid by a developer with fewer than 10 apps is closer to 15%. The 30% figure is accurate for large developers and has become the political shorthand for a system that is actually more graduated than the shorthand implies.

None of this is a defence of the commission structure, which remains subject to legitimate competition law concerns in multiple jurisdictions. It is an argument for more precise analysis of what the commission structure actually is, which is harder to achieve when the debate has been captured by a number that doesn’t describe the median experience.