Apple must allow External Payment Links: What Epic vs. Apple’s ruling means for developers, PMs, and marketers

Yesterday’s late-night decision in Epic v. Apple changes the rules of the game: Apple can no longer stop iOS apps in the United States from linking users to an external checkout, and it can’t charge you a cut when those purchases happen off-app. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers called Apple’s previous 27 percent “work-around” fee “a gross miscalculation” and ordered immediate compliance

The conversation in real time

• A fast-moving discussion is playing out on X (Twitter). A detailed thread by @jeiting walks through exactly what the injunction says and what developers can do today—you’ll find practical screenshots, legal excerpts, and live Q&A
  
• Product leaders, founders, and indie devs are weighing in under the ruling’s hashtag, swapping hypotheses about conversion rates, Apple’s next move, and how quickly teams should react

Tip: Bookmark that thread – it’s becoming the running logbook of clarifications and edge-case discoveries as the news settles

This is actually a big deal.

YGR just eviscerated Apple's ability to force payments exclusively through the App Store in the US. She enforced the injunction against apple with a vengeance. Effective immediately.

Here's what it means for app developers:https://t.co/JZn78Nqwgf

— Jacob Eiting — iap/acc (@jeiting) May 1, 2025

What exactly changed?

In practical terms, Apple’s infamous 30% App Store commission – which the court noted gave Apple “supracompetitive operating margins”​ – cannot be applied to purchases completed outside of the app. Apple is “barred from impeding developers’ ability to communicate with users” about other purchasing options. Previously, Apple only begrudgingly allowed a single external link (due to earlier court pressure) but still tried to impose a 27% fee on those purchases​. The judge ruled this behavior anticompetitive and made it clear that Apple must truly open the door for alternative payment flows. The key points of the injunction are worth summarizing:

• No Apple Tax on Web Purchases: Apple cannot impose any commission or fee on purchases made outside the app​. Developers keep 100% of that revenue (minus any payment processor costs) instead of paying Apple 15-30%
  
• Unrestricted Linking: Apple cannot restrict the placement, formatting, or content of in-app links or buttons that send users to an external purchase page​. Apps are free to include clearly labeled buttons or calls-to-action for outside purchases

• No Gating or Scare Tactics: Apple cannot interfere when a user decides to leave an app to purchase – beyond a neutral notice that they’re being redirected​. Full-page warnings or extra log-in hurdles that “dissuade customer usage of alternative purchase opportunities” are not allowed​

This decision is big news for any team building monetized apps. Below, we break down the significance for developers, product managers, and marketing leads, and explain how you can take advantage of these changes immediately. Notably,  we rolled out a solution the same day as the ruling – a new “Web Paywall Button” feature – to help developers quickly implement external web-based payments within their app experiences. We’ll cover that briefly further down this post

Implications for Developers: More Freedom and Revenue

For developers, the court ruling unlocks new implementation and revenue opportunities. No longer forced to use Apple’s In-App Purchase (IAP) exclusively, you can now integrate your own payment flow via the web or other platforms, without fear of App Store rejection for “steering” users outside the app. This means a few important things:

• Keep More of Your Earnings: With Apple’s commission removed on external purchases, you stand to retain an extra 15–30% of revenue that would have gone to Apple​. Especially for small studios or indie devs, this boost in revenue share can be life-changing. You’re effectively giving yourself a raise on every subscription or sale that you move to the web
  
• Implement Custom Payment Solutions: Developers can now build or integrate payment systems outside of Apple’s IAP. Want to use Stripe or Paddle on your website? Go for it. You can add an in-app link or button that launches a web view or browser to a checkout page, then return the user to the app. This flexibility lets you unify your app’s payment flow with your web product or Android app, for example, creating a more seamless cross-platform user experience
  
• Faster Iteration, Fewer IAP Headaches: Relying less on Apple’s IAP can simplify development and testing. You won’t need to deal with Apple’s sometimes laggy review process for price changes or new IAP products, since web purchases can be adjusted server-side. Bug fixes or improvements to your external purchase flow can be deployed instantly on the web. And because the ruling forbids Apple from imposing special design rules on external purchase links, you have full creative control over how to present these options in-app (within normal App Store content guidelines)

It’s worth noting that Apple will likely continue to enforce IAP for native in-app purchasing. Any purchases initiated within the iOS app still must use IAP (and pay Apple’s fee) unless you send the user out to the web. But thanks to this ruling, sending users out is now a viable (and legal) path. As Tim Sweeney put it, Apple now must “compete with other payment services rather than blocking them”

Implications for Product Managers: New Monetization Paths to Optimize

For product managers, this development opens up a world of possibilities to experiment with and optimize your app’s monetization flow. You are no longer constrained to Apple’s one-size-fits-all purchase UI or rules. Here’s how you can leverage the change:

• Design Better Purchase Flows: With the ability to direct users to an external purchase page, you control the entire checkout experience. This means you can design a customized purchase funnel that matches your app’s branding and UX guidelines, include more descriptive product details or comparisons, and even upsell or bundle offerings in ways not possible in the native IAP sheet. A well-crafted web checkout might convert better than the standard App Store popup, especially if you tailor it to your audience
  
• Introduce Pricing Flexibility & Promotions: Apple’s IAP historically limits pricing to certain tiers and forbids things like promo codes or personalized discounts. An external payment flow can offer flexible pricing options – for example, time-limited sales, coupon codes, referral discounts, or localized pricing tuned to different markets. Product managers can experiment with these pricing strategies to see what maximizes revenue and user acquisition. You could test offering a lower price on the web vs. in-app (since you’re not losing 30% to Apple on the web, you might pass some savings to users), and gauge if the lower price plus web friction yields more conversions than the higher in-app price with one-tap ease
  
• Optimize the Funnel End-to-End: The ruling allows communication with users about other purchase options, which means you can be more transparent and educational in-app. For example, an onboarding flow might explain “Subscribe on our website for a special offer” in a way that previously might have been disallowed. Product managers can now insert these messages at strategic points to capture intent. The entire funnel from within-app prompt → web checkout → returning to app can be instrumented and optimized. By analyzing where users drop off, you can refine messaging or UI either in the app or on the web to improve conversion rates
  
• Mitigate Risk with Dual Options: During this transition period, PMs might choose to offer both in-app purchases and external web purchases side-by-side (Apple cannot forbid having both). This dual approach lets users pick what they’re comfortable with. You could label one as “Fast purchase (App Store)” and another as “Best deal (Web)”. Providing choices can be a win-win: price-sensitive users might go to web for a discount, while others stick with one-tap Apple Pay convenience – either way, you get the sale

In short, experimentation is now your friend. The old regime forced everyone into the same IAP funnel; now you can A/B test entirely different monetization approaches. That brings us to the next point: new tools to help you run those experiments without a ton of engineering work

Implications for Marketing Teams: Greater Control Over Pricing and LTV

Marketers and growth teams will feel a similar boost from these changes. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) modeling and conversion rate optimization can be approached with newfound freedom:

• Recapture the 30% for Growth: The portion of revenue that used to vanish into Apple’s coffers can be reallocated to marketing budgets or user value. For example, with an extra 30% margin on a subscription, you might choose to invest more in user acquisition (higher allowable CPA in ads) or extend the user’s value (e.g. offer a longer free trial or a discounted first year on web). This can fuel growth now that the “Apple tax” is avoidable for users acquired through web purchase flows
  
• Fine-Tune Pricing Strategy: Marketers can work with PMs to segment pricing strategies. Perhaps offer annual subscriptions at a better rate on the web to drive up front revenue, or bundle digital goods in creative ways. Since you’re not bound by App Store pricing conventions, you can price products in psychologically optimal ways (e.g. $9.99 might become $8.99 or $9.49 on web if testing shows it converts more). You could even adjust prices more frequently in response to market demand or competitor promos, which was impractical under Apple’s strict IAP rules
  
• Own the Customer Relationship: An often overlooked marketing benefit of external purchases is direct customer relationship data. If a user buys via your website, you can collect an email, apply a referral code, or tag the user to a campaign – data that Apple does not share when they intermediate the transaction. This means better attribution for your campaigns (knowing which channel drove a purchase) and the ability to re-engage users through email or other channels. Ultimately, this can improve retention and LTV by enabling a more data-driven, personalized marketing approach
  
• Streamlined Conversion Tracking: When directing users to a web purchase, you can instrument tracking (e.g. Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, etc.) on your checkout page. That means clearer insight into conversion funnels for paid marketing campaigns. If a user came from an ad, installed the app, and then clicked the web purchase link, you could track that entire journey and attribute revenue to the ad – something that was very murky when all purchases happened inside Apple’s black box. Better data means smarter ad spend and higher ROI on marketing

Marketing leads should coordinate with product to ensure messaging around the new payment options is clear. For instance, if promoting the app, you might advertise “Sign up on the web for 20% off your first year – usable in the app” to drive people to the web flow. The new ruling gives the green light to such strategies within the app’s UI, so marketing can finally speak directly to users about deals and options that make the most sense

Recapping the implications per role

Role	Immediate Opportunities
Developers	Ship a web checkout link without fear of App Store rejection and keep the full revenue margin
Product Managers	A/B test external web purchases versus native IAP to find the highest-converting funnel, and iterate copy & pricing in minutes
Marketers / Growth	Re-invest the recovered 30 % margin into acquisition, run price promos impossible inside IAP, and capture first-party emails at checkout

A quick word on Web Paywall Buttons

Within hours of the ruling we unveiled a tiny-but-mighty Web Paywall Button – a component for our native paywall builder that jumps users from your in-app paywall to a RevenueCat-hosted web checkout and then unlocks entitlements automatically. But rather than repeat those details here, you can dive into the dedicated launch post, “Meet the Web Paywall Button (why and where you should test it, today)” for setup steps, screenshots, and experimentation tips.​

How to act right now

1. Stay in the loop on X. The ruling is still fresh, and clarifications are surfacing by the hour—follow the live thread and related replies
   
2. Spin up two paywalls:
   
   • Variant A – your existing IAP-only paywall
     
   • Variant B – the same paywall plus an external-purchase button
     
3. Target U.S. iOS traffic only. Use geolocation and SDK version filters so non-eligible users remain on IAP
   
4. Run an Experiment. Let data (conversion, revenue, churn) decide which funnel wins before you roll out globally
   
5. Iterate fast. Because both paywalls live in RevenueCat’s dashboard, you can tweak copy, price, or placement without an App Store review—and without waiting for Apple’s next move
   

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This is a rare moment when policy shifts and product opportunities align on the same day. Keep one eye on the court docket, another on the X thread, and ship fast, but ship data-driven. Your future subscribers (and your bottom line) will thank you