Apple’s October 1 terms lower the standard EU commission and let you combine IAP with alternative payments for the first time.
But is that reason enough to send some users to the web?
If fees are your only reason, and you’re not among the highest-revenue apps, the answer is probably no. You still pay Apple, your payment provider charges on top, and even a modest drop in conversion can eat up the savings. Not to mention the extra work of handling refunds, disputes, and customers who don’t know how to cancel.
You’d also be committing to those payment options for 12 months, even if they turn out to cost you more than they save.
For larger apps with brand recognition and enough sales in the EU, lower fees might still save enough to cover the extra billing and support work, especially if in-app checkout converts better than sending customers to the web.
Anyhow. Let’s unpack what we already know.
New commission rates, and IAP is no longer an either/or choice
The new terms change both what Apple charges and how you can combine payment options, applying to sales on EU storefronts (wherever your company is based).
First, developers can now offer alternative checkout inside their app or link to web checkout without removing Apple IAP. The in-app option lets customers pay without switching to a browser, which could mean fewer lost purchases.
But if you offer it alongside IAP, Apple's option must appear at least as prominently, though nothing stops you from pricing the two differently.
Customers still have to choose how to pay, so you’ve removed one source of friction without necessarily removing the others.
With the standard EU IAP commission down from 30% to 26%, there’s also less to save by moving purchases to an alternative checkout.
Apple charges 20% for alternative payments inside the app, just six percentage points below IAP, or 15% for web link-out. That’s a very different deal from the US, where Apple currently takes no commission on linked web purchases, although that remains subject to ongoing litigation.
Here’s what the full fee breakdown looks like for the EU:
What lower commissions really mean for your take-home revenue
At standard EU rates, web link-outs offer the biggest potential fee savings. That gap narrows fast, though.
Your provider takes a share on top, and it adds up quicker than the headline processing rate: on a €9.99 subscription in the EU, Stripe charges around 1.5% + €0.25 to process, 0.7% for Billing, and 0.5% for Tax, so roughly 5% in total. A merchant of record adds about 3.5 points more. And the smaller your transactions, the worse that fixed €0.25 looks.
Suppose you're making €100,000 in EU sales, paying your provider 5%, and losing 5% of purchases because customers have to go through a checkout they don't recognize.
Here’s what you’d be walking out with:
In this scenario, IAP wins in three of the four comparisons. The only path that beats it is a web link-out at standard rates, and only by €2,000 on €100,000 in sales, which a slightly worse conversion rate would wipe out entirely.
Finally, you’d also need to cover maintenance and support. If you use RevenueCat Billing, payment retries, billing emails, a customer portal, and dashboard refunds are handled for you. However, refund requests, chargebacks, and support tickets still take your team’s time.
The 12-month commitment is the biggest catch, but it’s not clear how far it goes
Apple’s developer terms say you elect which payment options you offer, and that election holds for twelve months across all EU storefronts:
“Each election you make applies across all the EU storefronts, and subsequent elections also remain in effect for twelve (12) months.”
So you can’t really plan on simply removing web checkout a month later if the numbers don’t look great. And you need to account for the billing, support, and reporting work even if the savings disappoint.
Rolling it out to a limited audience looks acceptable, as long as the experience stays consistent for the customers who do see it, but Apple’s wording leaves room for interpretation.
Apple’s published terms also don’t spell out how targeting or A/B tests fit into the commitment. This might leave room to test the waters with a smaller group through RevenueCat Experiments, comparing revenue and LTV across IAP, in-app alternative checkout, and web link-out.
So, should you add alternative checkout in the EU?
At the end of the day, there’s no definite rule on whether web billing is something you should try.
On the one hand, it’s not as straightforward as “paying less and saving on App Store fees,” because the reality is more nuanced. On the other hand, the actual impact on conversion, your existing resources, sales volume, and openness to experimentation can make this path more appealing for some developers.
While we’re running new experiments to estimate the impact on conversion, here are some directional tips on how to approach this based on where you are now.
For smaller apps, it may not be worth the trouble
Alternative checkout may not save enough to justify the effort, especially if you’re already paying Apple’s reduced 15% rate. The five-percentage-point difference gets smaller once you pay your provider, and lower conversion rates can wipe it out altogether.
Even if the calculation comes out somewhat positive, consider what that saving is worth against the time you’d spend maintaining another purchase flow. The 12-month lock-in also makes that decision more serious.
Where it might make sense is when the reason isn't revenue at all:
- A pricing model Apple doesn't support, like consumption-based or per-seat billing
- A custom payment setup your use case specifically requires
- Long-term benefits from managing the subscription lifecycle on web, like the pricing and promotion control we cover below
If you have limited time and budget, testing pricing and packaging or improving engagement may do more for revenue at this stage. That doesn’t rule out web purchases, but it gives you something to compare it with before deciding where to put your effort.
For larger apps, there may be more to gain
Web monetization may be worth testing if you have substantial EU sales and the resources to support another billing flow. Especially now that it's no longer all or nothing: under the previous terms, selling outside IAP meant removing Apple's checkout from that storefront entirely. Now you can add web checkout alongside IAP and leave your existing flow running.
The maths also improves with scale, since setup costs don't grow proportionally with sales. And conversion is less of a gamble when customers already know your brand, which is part of why this works for the likes of Duolingo and Spotify.
You don't have to show web checkout to everyone either. Apple's rules govern what appears on each paywall, not who sees it, so you can start with your most loyal customers and keep IAP as the only option elsewhere.
Finally, the value of web monetization goes beyond fee savings if you've already built a growth engine that can use the extra levers:
- Pricing and promotions: Web-specific prices, discounts, and win-back offers applied directly at checkout, without going through App Store Connect
- Checkout experience: Control over the purchase page and the payment methods you offer, with room to test both
- Lifecycle marketing: RevenueCat already sends billing events to your email and CRM tools on IAP. What alternative checkout adds is the ability to act on them — like a win-back email that lands on a checkout with the offer already applied, or a cancellation flow that counters with a different price and takes the payment there
Lower fees come with more reporting. RevenueCat handles that part.
Say you've done the math and decided to enable web purchases in the EU. Under Apple's October 1 terms, your purchase flow has to pass App Review, and every transaction has to be reported back to Apple.
What’s more, that reporting doesn’t end with the first payment. Renewals, refunds, product changes, and cancellations all need to be accounted for.
Even if a customer opens checkout and leaves without buying, the token Apple issued still needs a report.
With RevenueCat, you don’t have to build all of this yourself:
- Reporting: Purchases through the Stripe Billing, Paddle Billing, and RevenueCat Billing integrations are matched to Apple’s tokens and reported automatically, along with subsequent subscription activity and unused tokens.
- Purchase buttons: Apple-styled IAP buttons are built into Paywalls for when you offer IAP alongside alternative checkout.
- Targeting: You can show the alternative-payment paywall on EU storefronts and keep your existing IAP paywall elsewhere.
- Checkout: Your customers can follow a link to pay in their browser, or pay in a checkout sheet inside your app (currently in private beta).
The bottom line
If you have the purchase volume and resources to experiment, web monetization is worth considering. Especially if you also want to test different offers, payment methods, or lifecycle campaigns.
Start with a clear hypothesis about what you expect to improve, then measure conversion, revenue after fees, renewals, and the support work that comes with it.
A lower commission isn’t a reason to rush on its own. In the EU, you still pay Apple and your provider, and you’re committing to your chosen payment options for 12 months. The experiment needs to show whether the savings and additional control justify that commitment for your app.
We’re running our own experiments to understand how the new EU options affect conversion and longer-term revenue. Stay tuned for updates.