Apple finally blinked. On August 18, after two years of fighting the European Commission over the Digital Markets Act, the company announced a complete rewrite of its EU App Store business terms. The Commission says it approves. Developers can sign the new terms today. The new rates hit on October 1.

But here is the part the headline coverage mostly skipped: this is not a clean victory for anyone. Depending on which terms your app was operating under, Apple's surrender is either a real cut, a quiet rate hike, or a brand new toll on a road that used to be free. The DMA finally won a round — but the fee math is a lot more interesting than the press release lets on.

The New Fee Table: Four Roads, Four Prices

Under the unified terms, Apple is collapsing its messy EU fee structure into four clear commission tiers:

App Store apps using Apple In-App Purchase pay 26 percent — dropping to 15 percent for participants in the Small Business Program, Mini Apps Partner Program, or Video Partner Program, and for auto-renewing subscriptions after their first year. App Store apps using alternative payment processing pay 20 percent, or 10 percent reduced. App Store apps that link out of the app to complete purchases pay 15 percent, or 10 percent reduced. And apps distributed through alternative app marketplaces or the web pay a 5 percent Core Technology Commission.

The initial acquisition fee and the store services fee are gone entirely. Apple says the move reduces complexity by moving every developer that distributes apps in the EU to a single set of business terms. One set of terms, four different prices depending on how you handle payments. That is the whole game in one sentence.

The Core Technology Fee Is Dead. Long Live the Core Technology Commission

The 50-cent-per-install Core Technology Fee was the most hated number in app development. It did not scale with revenue. It scaled with popularity — a tax on success that hit free apps and viral hits hardest, kicking in after just one million installs per year. Developers revolted, and the Commission's April 2025 non-compliance decision over steering terms and alternative distribution put a sword over Apple's head.

So Apple killed it. In its place is the Core Technology Commission: 5 percent of digital transactions for apps distributed outside the App Store. For most developers, that is cheaper — no more per-install bill for a free app that suddenly goes viral. But for a business that runs its own storefront, like Epic Games, it is an ongoing toll on every transaction, forever, with no threshold and no ceiling. The fee is dead. The revenue share is not.

The Fee Shuffle: A Cut for Some, a Hike for Most

Here is where the press releases get quiet. When Apple introduced its original EU terms back in March 2024, it offered App Store developers a reduced commission of 17 percent — 10 percent for small business program members — on apps that used Apple In-App Purchase, with the Core Technology Fee bolted on top for apps that scaled. The message was: stay inside the walled garden and we will cut the vig.

The new unified terms put every App Store app that uses Apple In-App Purchase at 26 percent. No Core Technology Fee for App Store apps, sure. But for the majority of EU developers who never hit the one-million-install threshold — meaning the fee never actually applied to them — that is a jump from 17 percent to 26 percent. A nine-point increase, wrapped in a headline about how Apple is complying with the DMA.

Meanwhile, a developer who never left the classic 30 percent terms just watched their commission drop to 26 percent. So the same announcement is a cut and a hike at the same time, depending on where you stood. Apple did not lower the ceiling. It set the unified rate right below the old ceiling and called it progress.

What the Commission Got in Return

The European Commission, for its part, is playing the win. A spokesperson told the Irish Independent that the Commission welcomes Apple's changes to its business terms, which follow a close dialogue between the Commission and Apple after the Commission issued a non-compliance decision related to Apple's steering terms as well as preliminary findings related to alternative app distribution, both in April 2025.

The Commission also promised to monitor Apple's effective implementation of the new terms, adding that under the DMA, users in the EU have a right to full and effective choice of alternative app distribution channels.

Apple did hand over real concessions. Developers can now offer Apple In-App Purchase alongside alternative payment options — previously forbidden in the EU. The requirements for operating an alternative marketplace were slashed: instead of a one-million-euro standby letter of credit from an A-rated bank, you can now qualify through a Dun & Bradstreet financial-stability score, a public stock listing, venture backing from an established investment firm, a licensed accountant's audit, or government, educational, or nonprofit status. Web distribution is open. And there are new child-safety guardrails: no external purchase links in Kids category apps, a parental gate for users under 18, and no external links at all for users under 13.

That is a genuine settlement. It is also a settlement Apple can afford to live with — because the fee structure still tilts the field.

Epic Is Not Happy — and It Has a Point

Epic Games, which has spent years in court with Apple, called the new terms exactly what they are: new junk fees. In a statement, Epic said the 20 percent fee on alternative in-app payments, the 15 percent fee on link-outs, and the 5 percent Core Technology Commission do nothing to open up the mobile app ecosystem to competition, as required by the Digital Markets Act.

Epic's sharpest argument is the link-out fee. The DMA says gatekeepers have to let developers inform customers about cheaper offers and steer them to the web free of charge. Apple is charging 15 percent when a purchase actually completes through that link-out. Epic says that deliberately violates the law, and warned that if the Commission accepts the terms and drops its ongoing enforcement actions, the law will become meaningless. Epic itself does not qualify for the reduced rates, so its store on the iPhone and iPad would pay the full 5 percent Core Technology Commission on every digital purchase.

There is a real tension here. Apple can claim it is complying with the letter — the link exists, the steering is allowed — while the 15 percent toll makes steering economically pointless for most apps. That is not a bug in the settlement. That is the settlement.

The Bigger Picture: The DMA Is Suddenly Real

You have to read this announcement against the last two months. On July 23, the European Commission fined Google 890 million euros — roughly one billion dollars — for two separate DMA breaches involving search self-preferencing and Play Store anti-steering. It was the first real penalty under the law. Days later, the Trump administration opened a Section 301 trade probe of the EU over the fine, turning a competition case into a transatlantic fight. Meanwhile, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority has classed Apple and Google as holding too much market power in app stores.

Apple watched all of that and chose to settle. That is the pattern now: regulators have moved from writing rules to collecting revenue, and the companies that settle early get to write the fee tables themselves. Google fought and got an 890-million-euro bill. Apple negotiated and got a unified terms sheet with a 26 percent standard rate.

What This Means: The Operating Model Shift

For anyone actually running a software business in Europe, the practical math changed on August 18. A subscription app that keeps Apple In-App Purchase pays 26 percent. The same app using an alternative payment processor inside the App Store pays 20 percent. Link out to the web and pay 15 percent. Leave the App Store entirely and pay 5 percent on transactions.

That is a real spread — and a real incentive to build the plumbing. But there is a catch in the fine print: once you select your payment options, you must maintain them for 12 months. The choice is no longer a monthly experiment. It is a contract term. Small shops with subscription revenue should be running the numbers on 20 percent versus 15 percent versus 5 percent right now, before October 1, because the window to pick your lane is one-way.

What Comes Next

The new terms go live October 1. Three things to watch. First, whether the Commission actually closes the April 2025 non-compliance case — or keeps it open as leverage while it monitors implementation. Second, what Epic does next; its lawyers are already on record saying the terms violate the law, and it has the war chest to test that in court. Third, whether this template travels: the US Congress has its own app store bills, the UK regulator is circling, and other markets are watching Europe's playbook.

The takeaway for independent developers is simple. The era of one flat 30 percent commission is over in Europe. But do not mistake a menu for freedom. Apple just replaced a single tollbooth with four lanes — and set the speed limit itself.

— Allan Ali, Sylt.ing