Apple’s special conditions for subscriptions allegedly only provide higher developer income in a few cases. Apple reduces its commission after the first subscription year from 30 to 15 percent, due to the high bounce rates among subscribers, however, according to the analysis of an app service provider, only relatively few apps benefit from this – most of them would have to remain close to Assign percent of your in-app sales to the iPhone manufacturer.

High bounce rate for monthly subscriptions For monthly subscriptions, jump every month on average 13 percent of customers, so that after twelve months only 20 Percentage of the original subscribers remain – and only for these will Apple lower the commission, the company Revenue Cat calculates, which offers special tools for the delivery of in-app purchases and thus a deeper insight into receives the business with in-app subscriptions.

Only if the subscriber has been constant for more than a full year ant pays, takes the more advantageous 85 / 15-Division. If the subscription is canceled or the subscription expires for any other reason – such as an expired credit card – and is not canceled within a grace period of 60 days subscribed again, Apple resets the counter. The invoice applies not only to iOS and the App Store, but also to Android – at least with regard to Google’s Play Store, where the same conditions apply, as Revenue Cat notes.

According to the numbers, annual subscriptions jump around 50 Percentage of subscribers from – significantly more for monthly subscriptions.

(Image: Revenue Cat)

Apps can slowly accumulate long-term subscribers over many years and benefit from the platform provider’s reduced commission, but apparently only very few apps manage to do this: Since subscribers who have dropped out are at best replaced by new, different subscribers for this finally again the 70 / 30 – Split and thus less gets stuck with the developer: Only 15 percent of the apps can achieve a sales share of over 75 percent, writes Revenue Cat with reference to its own customers.

Special conditions only for video services With annual subscriptions, only around half of the subscribers drop out in the first year, notes the service provider, so that providers can benefit more from the reduced Apple commission in the second year. Since annual subscriptions usually only make up a small part of the subscriptions, this often has little effect on the whole. It makes sense, of course, to optimize your app to keep the subscribers, is the conclusion of the provider, but developers should not do this solely with regard to the 85 / 15 – make split.

Only video service providers receive special conditions from Apple under certain conditions: In this case, the 85/15-Division. In addition, these app providers can also bill content via their own payment interface, so that no commission has to be paid to Apple – otherwise this is strictly prohibited.

(lbe)