The week app store fees got cheaper and app stores got crowded

What Apple's new app store fees proposal actually says#

A fox that has been fined for raiding the same coop twice does not stop raiding, it just learns the going rate. Apple filed its latest answer to that rate on 13 August 2026, and it is the smallest number the company has offered yet.

The filing proposes three tiers for purchases made through external payment links: 15 percent for standard apps, 10 percent for apps in Apple's Video Partner, News Partner and Mini Apps programmes plus subscription renewals, and 5 percent for apps in the App Store Small Business Program, per AppleInsider's report on the filing. That is Apple's most modest proposal in this dispute yet, down from a previous maximum of 27 percent, per PocketGamer.biz's coverage of the same filing.

Why 27 percent became the number to beat#

The 27 percent figure is not arbitrary. In April 2025, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found Apple had "willfully" violated her original 2021 injunction by charging exactly that rate on external payment links while displaying warning screens designed to discourage developers from using them at all. She barred Apple from charging any fee on those links and referred the matter for possible criminal contempt. Apple's new 15/10/5 structure is the company's attempt to satisfy the Ninth Circuit's guidance that a commission is only impermissible if it is "effectively prohibitive", without inviting a second contempt finding.

Apple justified the tiers by arguing it should be compensated for the tools, technology and services it provides developers regardless of which payment rail a purchase clears through, per Gizmodo's reporting on the filing.

Epic's answer, and the settlement Apple actually wants#

Apple did not file this proposal in isolation. Alongside it, Apple filed a motion asking the court to refer both companies to a settlement conference before Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero, having approached Epic's counsel about the idea on 11 August, per 9to5Mac's coverage of the filing.

Epic said no to both the fees and, so far, the settlement framing. The company posted directly: "Apple's filing is in, and Apple admitted that under the Ninth Circuit's definition of 'necessary costs' they would charge 0% for purchases made via linkouts to the web," per PocketGamer.biz's report. Epic now has roughly 60 days to file a formal opposition backed by expert testimony.

Meanwhile, Google let a stranger into its own store#

Three days before Apple's filing, Google did something no Android app store had managed in over a decade: it let a genuine rival trade inside its own front door. Aptoide Games, a Portuguese gaming marketplace with roughly 25 million monthly active users and more than 40,000 Android titles, became "the first rival app store to return to Google Play in the US" on 10 August, per TechCrunch's reporting.

The route in was the Play Catalog Access Program, which Google launched on 22 June 2026 to let competing stores access Google Play's catalogue while staying independent, a direct consequence of losing its 2023 antitrust case to Epic Games and a subsequent 2025 appellate loss, per TechCrunch. US District Judge James Donato's order required Google to permit third-party app store installation, and third-party stores themselves became available from 22 July 2026, per Engadget's account, which also carries a quote from Aptoide's CEO, Paulo Trezentos: "Users gain more choice, developers gain additional distribution opportunities, and Android becomes a more open and competitive ecosystem."

What the new discoverability layer means for ASO#

For app marketers, this is not a footnote to the fee story, it is the other half of it. Android Authority's analysis puts it plainly: app marketers must now consider visibility across multiple storefronts rather than Google Play alone, and specialised stores like Aptoide Games can surface indie and niche titles that mainstream algorithms overlook. A discovery strategy built entirely around one store's search algorithm is now, quietly, a single point of failure, and a smart operator forages beyond the one hedgerow it already knows.

Five moves while the app store fees settle#

None of this is final. Apple's rates are a proposal Epic has already rejected, and Aptoide is one storefront, not a movement, yet. But the direction is clear enough to track like a scent on cooling ground, and act on now, quietly and without overcommitting.

The comparison every developer already half-knows#

Developers on Apple's alternative EU terms already live with a version of this future. Under the EU's Digital Markets Act, which formally treats app stores as a "core platform service" subject to gatekeeper obligations, Apple already offers a reduced 10 percent commission on subscription renewals after the first year for developers who opt into alternative EU terms, per Apple's own documentation. The US proposal is, in effect, Apple exporting a milder version of a compromise regulation already forced on it elsewhere.

So does Apple take 30% of in-app purchases? Yes, still, as the standard rate, but that headline number now sits alongside a Small Business Program rate of 15%, EU alternative terms as low as 10% on renewals, and a proposed 15/10/5 tiered structure for anything routed through an external payment link. Treating 30% as the only number in the room, and chasing that one figure the way a young fox chases the first quarry it smells, is the single most common mistake in app store fee modelling right now.

None of this settles quickly. Apple and Epic have a settlement conference request pending and a 60-day opposition window running. Aptoide is a first mover, not yet a proven distribution channel, and the App Store's own history with alternative Android storefronts suggests early access rarely converts into early volume without a deliberate push. The honest posture for the next quarter is to model both scenarios, keep the trail marked, and move calmly rather than betting the whole budget on either outcome landing exactly as filed.

There is a temptation, whenever a platform makes a concession this specific, to treat it as a permanent settlement rather than a filing still under active dispute. Resist it. Apple has revised its external-link commission proposal more than once already in this case, moving from 27 percent down to this week's tiered structure, and nothing in the record suggests the current numbers are the floor. Build your budget models to update quarterly rather than annually until a judge, not a filing, closes the question.

If your app's pricing model, payment routing and storefront presence need a proper review against this week's changes, that is exactly the kind of work folkfox's app marketing team does, backed by the same paid search and SEO and GEO discipline we bring to every regulated client.

Frequently asked questions#