Apple puts a price on the escape hatch: 15, 10 and 5 percent for links out of the App Store

Apple has told a federal court what it thinks link-outs are worth: 15 percent from standard apps, 10 percent from several partner programs and from subscription renewals, and 5 percent from Small Business Program developers, according to a MacRumors report on the August 13 filing ^[1][2][3]. For product teams who spent the last year treating external checkout as a way out of App Store commissions, the filing reframes the decision as a pricing question rather than an exit.

The structure is deliberately parasitic on the existing rate card. An app paying 30 percent on in-app purchase would pay 15 percent on a web purchase reached through an in-app link ^[2], a halving ^[8]. Small Business Program participants, who qualify by earning under $1 million a year, drop from 15 percent to 5 percent ^[2][3], which is a two-thirds cut rather than a half ^[9]. The fee triggers on the full path: user is in the app, taps the link, buys on the site ^[4]. Apple's own example is a Spotify subscriber who clicks through to spotify.com and pays there, generating a 15 percent obligation ^[5].

Note where renewals sit. As listed, subscription renewals fall in the 10 percent tier alongside the News, Video and Mini Apps partner programs ^[3]. For a subscription business, that is the line item that compounds, and it is priced at a third of the standard in-app rate rather than half.

The relevant comparison is not Apple's old link-out scheme but the current zero. Apple previously implemented a 12 to 27 percent fee that MacRumors describes as nearly identical to its normal App Store rates once third-party payment processing was counted ^[6]. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found Apple in contempt over that structure and in April 2025 barred it from charging anything on links; Apple has collected nothing on link-outs since ^[7]. So the proposal is a move from 0 to 15 for standard apps ^[10], and 12 points below the old 27 percent ceiling ^[11]. The saving is real, but it is a discount on a bill developers currently do not receive, and it lands on top of whatever a team pays for processing, fraud and billing support on its own web funnel.

The floor is genuinely contested. The appeals court suggested the commission could be capped at the direct costs of facilitating link-outs, which would produce a fee of zero, and Apple argues that zero would not reflect the value of the App Store platform ^[12]. Apple also says its numbers rest on expert analysis and come in below the link-out rates Google is charging in Epic v. Google ^[13]. That is Apple's characterisation, and Epic has not yet responded on the record.

What to watch: the district court in the Northern District of California will evaluate the proposal and hear Epic's response, and Apple has to implement whatever number the court sets ^[14][15]. Above that, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Apple's appeal of the contempt finding in the term beginning in October ^[16], and Apple failed several times to pause the fee calculation pending that ruling ^[17]. If the justices decide the appeals court erred, the order barring fees could be nullified ^[18]. Planning a web checkout on the assumption of 15 percent is therefore planning against a ceiling that could move in either direction, and a floor that one court has already implied might be zero.