15 instead of 30 Percentage of sales commission to the iPhone group: Smaller developers should have this advantage in the App Store in the future. For this purpose, Apple has set up the so-called App Store Small Business Program, which starts on January 1st 2021. The central condition: Developers must not have turned over more than one million US dollars per year with their apps – or a good 1.2 million without deducting Apple’s regular commission of 30 percent. The first developers have now received their official letter of approval from the group and will be able to participate from January.

Letters of acceptance are arriving Developers have been able to apply for participation since the beginning of December. The approval email that has now been sent, the first of which has been sent to developers since Christmas, said the reduced fee should help “invest more resources in your business to keep making quality apps that customers love”.

The prerequisite is that the turnover 2021 does not exceed one million US dollars, otherwise the standard rate applies “for the rest of the year” of 30 percent. In addition, developers are not allowed to transfer apps to third parties or accept such a transfer – the cut-off here is tomorrow’s 31. December. Apple apparently wants to prevent particularly successful apps from being taken over and introduced into the “App Store Small Business Program” in order to benefit from the commission cut in the short term.

Every application is checked Apple checks every registration for the program. Developers are obliged to indicate all accounts that they operate as part of Apple’s Developer Program, since all app store income of a person or company falls below this turnover limit and the creation of further accounts should be prevented as a loophole.

The halving of the app store commission not only caused joy among developers. The well-known developer David Heinemeier Hansson keeps the step for a move from Machiavelli’s textbook, because Apple drives a wedge between the developers. In fact, the introduction of the program is probably a reaction to sharp criticism of the App Store as well as legal measures by major developers who want to challenge Apple’s “monopoly position”.

(bsc)