How to Avoid Apple App Store Fees (Legally): A Founder's Guide

Learning how to avoid Apple App Store fees is mostly learning which fees are not yours to avoid. If your app sells digital features inside the app, Apple takes a commission, and no clever checkout changes that. What you can do is shrink it, move it, or build a product that never triggers it.

Everything below is a business decision, not a code recipe. The wiring lives in the payment provider abstraction piece. The flat yearly cost of being on the store is in the full cost to publish. Here I only ask: what does the commission apply to, and which routes are legitimate?

What the App Store Commission Actually Applies To

The App Store commission is charged on sales Apple processes: paid apps and in-app purchases. Apple's review guidelines, section 3.1.1, say that if you want to unlock features or functionality in your app, such as subscriptions, game currencies, premium content or a full version, you must use in-app purchase.

So the first step in how to avoid Apple App Store fees is to sort your revenue into two buckets. Digital things consumed in the app go through Apple. Everything else, mostly, does not. The fee follows the product, not the founder's preference.

Apps get removed for ignoring this, usually by hiding a payment form behind a license key or a web view. Do not do that. Every route below is one that Apple's own documents describe.

Lever One: The Apple Small Business Program

The cheapest answer to how to avoid Apple App Store fees at the standard 30% rate is to qualify for a lower one. Apple's Small Business Program lowers the commission to 15% on paid apps and in-app purchases for developers whose proceeds were up to $1 million in the prior calendar year, according to Apple's programme page.

Details that matter for a founder, all from that page:

• Proceeds means sales net of Apple's commission and certain taxes, not gross revenue.
• You must also stay under the threshold in the current year. If you cross it, the standard rate applies to future sales, not retroactively.
• You enrol as the Account Holder in App Store Connect and list associated developer accounts.
• The new rate starts after the end of the fiscal month in which you are approved, so enrol before your first sale, not after.

Most first-year apps qualify, which is why this is the first thing I check when someone asks how to avoid Apple App Store fees on a new subscription app. If you remember one line from this guide, it is: enrol in the Apple Small Business Program before you launch. It costs nothing and it is the single biggest reduction available to a startup. It is a discount, not an exemption: the Apple 15% commission is still a commission.

Lever Two: How to Avoid Apple App Store Fees by Selling Things the Commission Does Not Cover

Some purchases are not digital goods consumed in the app, and Apple's guidelines say so directly. Under 3.1.3, an app that sells physical goods or services consumed outside the app must use payment methods other than in-app purchase, such as Apple Pay or a card. A delivery app, a ticketing app or a marketplace for physical items is not paying a commission on those sales.

Real-time person-to-person services, like tutoring or a consultation between two individuals, may also use other methods under the same section. One-to-many sessions may not.

This lever is about product design before it is about payments. I would not bend a product to dodge a commission, but if you are choosing between two models, such as a coaching marketplace versus a content subscription, know that they sit on opposite sides of this line. Founders usually learn it from a rejection email rather than from a business plan.

For digital value inside the app, the sensible default is to accept the commission, price for it, and put your effort into retention instead.

Lever Three: App Store External Payment Links

The third lever is the loud one. Apple's guidelines (3.1.1(a)) say entitlements are not required to include buttons, external links or other calls to action in United States storefront apps. In other words, a US-storefront app may point users to a web checkout. Outside the US, Apple offers link entitlements in specific regions, with their own terms.

That is where founders start to count savings. Slow down: whether Apple can charge a commission on a purchase made after tapping one of those app store external payment links is the unsettled part. In December 2025 the Ninth Circuit held that a total ban on commissions for linked purchases went too far, and that Apple may seek one tied to costs it can justify. The Supreme Court has since agreed to hear Apple's appeal, and the briefing was still under way in September 2026. I could not confirm a current rate from a primary source on the day of writing, so I will not quote one.

My advice: design for the web checkout being possible, and do not put it in your margin until the rule settles. Build the payment layer so a web funnel can sit next to in-app purchase, which is exactly what Boyfi did with an Adapty paywall plus a separate Stripe web funnel behind one interface. The rule can change under you; an interface survives that.

A web checkout also has non-fee costs. You own tax, refunds, receipts and fraud. Conversion on a hosted page differs from a native sheet, and I would test it rather than assume it.

Google Play Is the Calmer Store

Google Play fees changed on June 30, 2026 in the US, the UK and the EEA, and the change split one number into two. The service fee is now 10% on the first $1 million you earn each year, and 10% on every auto-renewing subscription. On top of it sits a 5% billing fee — charged only when the payment goes through Google Play Billing. Sell through alternative billing or an external web link — both run through Google's billing-choice programmes — and Google says the billing fee does not apply. Above $1 million, one-time purchases pay 20% for users who installed after the change and up to 25% for earlier installs, plus the billing fee where it applies. Other regions move on Google's own schedule. Check the Play Console help page before you model margin, because store terms move.

That split is the lever Android now has. A subscription sold through Play Billing costs you 15% — 10% service plus 5% billing. The same subscription sold through your own web checkout costs 10%, and you take on tax, refunds and the conversion hit of leaving the app.

The practical point: if you ship on both platforms, the Google commission is usually the smaller worry, and the Apple one is where the lever work happens. Do not copy-paste an Apple decision onto Android. They are separate contracts.

The Decision Table

Here is how I sort a first launch. Pick the row that matches your money, not your instinct.

What you sell	Commission exposure	What I would do
Digital subscription or unlock in app	Yes, 15% under the programme if you qualify	Enrol in the small business programme, price for the cut
Physical goods or off-app services	No in-app purchase needed	Use a normal card or wallet checkout
Person-to-person live sessions	Other methods allowed	Check the 3.1.3 wording against your exact format
Digital product with a strong web audience	Contested for linked purchases	Build for a web funnel, budget at the in-app rate

What I Would Put in a Launch Plan

Short version of how to avoid Apple App Store fees without losing the app:

1. Enrol in the Apple Small Business Program before the first sale.
2. Decide which of your products are digital goods and which are not.
3. Price for the in-app commission. Treat any link-out saving as upside.
4. Keep the payment layer swappable so a rule change is an adapter, not a rewrite.
5. Re-read the guideline section the week you submit. Rules change faster than blog posts, mine included.

The point of the whole exercise is to stop treating the fee as a surprise. A founder who knows the 15% line, the physical-goods line and the open link-out question can price the product honestly.

The Bottom Line

How to avoid Apple App Store fees has a boring answer for most startups: qualify for the lower rate, sell what the commission does not touch if your model allows it, and treat external payment links as a possible saving rather than a plan. If you want a second opinion on your pricing model before you commit to a paywall, see how I work on the services page, or tell me about your project.