Google yesterday noted the changes will be in line with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which comes into effect today. However, one important detail it left out was whether it would charge developers who direct users to download apps outside of the Play Store, and if so, how much.
Now Google has announced that it will actually charge developers even if they don’t use the Play Store. Apple did it with the App Store. According to new details found Play Console help sectionthe company will receive two new fees:
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10% initial purchase fee for in-app purchases or 5% for two-year subscriptions. This represents the Play value given to facilitate initial user purchase.
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Ongoing service fee of 17% for in-app purchases or 7% for subscriptions. This includes ongoing Play services such as parental controls, security, fraud prevention and app updates.
If users agree, developers can waive ongoing payments after two years, but ongoing Play services will no longer apply. “Since users have access to the app through Play with the expectation of services such as parental controls, security scanning, fraud prevention and continuous software updates, the suspension of services also requires user consent,” it said.
Google added the following diagram to show how fees would apply to a hypothetical “Fantastic App”:
In doing so, Google is taking a similar approach to Apple, which has reduced App Store commissions but introduced new fees. Namely, Apple introduced a new 3 percent “payment processing” fee for transactions that go through its store. And the new “basic technology fee” will charge everyone a flat €0.50 software downloadsafter the first 1 million installs, regardless of whether they come from the App Store or a third-party website.
Google justifies the payments by praising the value it provides in the Android ecosystem: “Play payments support our investment in Android and Google Play and Value provided by Android and Playincluding distributing Android for free and providing an ever-growing set of tools and services that help developers build successful businesses, while keeping our platforms safe and secure for billions of users around the world.”
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney already blasted Google’s post about DMA compatibility yesterday, before the new fees were made public. “Google has announced its plans for harmful compliance with the European DMA law… it looks like their anti-doping policy will be superseded by the new Google Tax on web transactions. We’ll likely find out soon how it and other developers react to this law. new fees .
