Core answer: The Core Technology Fee, charged per install, becomes the Core Technology Commission — five percent of digital transactions in apps distributed outside the App Store.
Free and low-converting apps with large install bases gain the most. Apps that monetise heavily outside the App Store now pay in proportion to revenue instead of downloads.
What the Apple EU business terms actually replace
Under the outgoing structure, an app distributed through an alternative marketplace or web distribution paid a fee tied to installs. Cost scaled with popularity whether or not the install produced revenue.
That is the part being removed. The Core Technology Commission charges five percent of digital transactions instead, so a download that never converts no longer carries a bill.
Two other charges disappear entirely: the Initial Acquisition Fee and the Store Services Fee. Apple describes the result as unified business terms, and the practical effect is fewer variables in the model.
The rates, and which one your revenue actually meets
Three distribution paths carry three different commissions. The lower figure in each pair applies to Small Business Program, Mini Apps Partner Program and Video Partner Program participants, and to auto-renewable subscriptions after their first year.
| Payment path | Standard | Reduced |
|---|---|---|
| Apple In-App Purchase | 26% | 15% |
| Alternative payment processing inside the app | 20% | 10% |
| Out-of-app offer via a link | 15% | 10% |
| Distribution outside the App Store | 5% Core Technology Commission on digital transactions | |
The out-of-app rate carries a condition worth reading twice: only sales made within seven days of the link tap are subject to that commission.
That window turns a pricing question into an attribution question. A purchase on day eight sits outside the commission, and a purchase on day six does not.
Where the old model quietly hurt
A per-install fee punished exactly the apps that grow before they monetise. A viral free tool paid for every download while its conversion rate stayed flat.
Teams responded by suppressing distribution, which is a strange thing for a growth model to encourage. Some capped marketing spend not because acquisition stopped working, but because each new user carried a fixed cost with no matching revenue.
The commission model removes that asymmetry. It also introduces a new one: an app with high revenue per user now pays more as it succeeds, where before its cost was capped by install count.
The new workflow: decide once, live with it for a year
Developers distributing in the EU select their payment options and hold that selection for twelve months. The options can be combined, but the combination is what gets locked.
Step one: separate EU revenue from the rest. The terms apply to EU distribution. A blended global figure will point at the wrong answer.
Step two: model each path against real transaction data. Take last quarter’s EU revenue and apply 26%, 20% and 15% respectively, then subtract the processing and support costs each alternative path adds back.
Step three: check your program eligibility. The reduced rates are not a negotiation; they follow from Small Business Program participation and from subscription age.
Step four: price the seven-day window honestly. If you plan to rely on out-of-app offers, you need attribution good enough to know which purchases fall inside it.
Step five: accept the agreement. The updated Apple Developer Program License Agreement carries the EU terms in Attachment 14, and it has to be accepted before the terms apply to your account.
Model the year, not the month. A twelve-month lock means a seasonal business should test its choice against its strongest quarter and its weakest one. A model built on an average month hides both.
What the alternative paths cost that the table does not show
A lower commission is not a lower cost. Alternative payment processing moves work onto your team that Apple previously absorbed.
You take on payment processing fees, chargebacks, refunds, tax calculation and remittance across EU jurisdictions, and the support load that arrives with all four. For a small team those are real salaries, not line items.
Child safety protections also apply to alternative payments under the new terms, which is engineering work rather than a policy checkbox.
The honest comparison is the commission difference multiplied by EU revenue, set against the fully loaded cost of running payments yourself. For many teams the gap is smaller than the headline rates suggest.
A fit rule
Stay on Apple In-App Purchase when EU revenue is modest, the team is small, or you qualify for the reduced rate. The commission difference will not cover the operational cost of doing it yourself.
Consider alternative in-app processing when EU revenue is large enough that six percentage points funds a payments capability you would want regardless.
Consider distribution outside the App Store when your install base is large and your conversion is low, because that is precisely the shape the old per-install fee punished and the five percent commission does not.
Back to the deadline
The date on the calendar is 1 October, but the decision it forces runs to October of next year. That is the part worth slowing down for.
Run the model on your own EU numbers before agreeing to terms, and write down the assumption that would change your answer. When it changes, you will know at renewal instead of discovering it in a quarterly report.
A single worksheet is enough. One column per payment path, one row per cost that path adds back, and the assumption you are least sure of circled at the bottom.
Related reading: our coverage of mobile app development and of AI tech decisions that carry similar lock-in.
Primary source: Apple’s developer documentation on apps in the European Union and the announcement of changes for apps in the EU.
