Google Reduces Play Store Fees for Subscription Apps

The Google Play Store is home to millions of apps and games, and hence, it is an important platform for developers to earn a living. However, along with Apple, Google has been facing a fair amount of criticism for charging high commission fees to developers for selling paid apps on its digital marketplace. As a result, we saw the company reduce the transactional fee from 30% to 15% earlier this year. Now, the Mountain View giant has announced to further reduce the cut it takes from developers to boost their income.

Google recently shared an official blog post on its Android forum to make the announcement. The recent change modifies Google’s current business model that charges a 30% service fee from developers selling paid apps on the Play Store for the first year, before reducing it down to 15%.

However, with the latest change, Sameer Samat, the VP of Product Management at Google Play, announced that starting from January 1, 2022, “we’re decreasing the service fee for all subscriptions on Google Play from 30% to 15%, starting from day one.”

That means developers who are selling paid apps or services on the Play Store will no longer have to pay the 30% fee for the first year. They will be eligible for a 15% fee, starting from the first day itself. No need to wait for 12 months to pay the reduced fees.

Other than this, Google also reduced the service fee in the Media Experience program. So, ebooks and on-demand music streaming services will now be eligible for a service fee as low as 10%, which should further boost the developer earnings. You can go to the official Media Experience program page to know more about the change.

With these changes, Google is aiming to boost the economy of developers. The company will publicly announce the changes to the Google Play Store and its latest developing tools, application programming interfaces (APIs), and other app-developing technologies during the Android Developer Summit, which is scheduled for October 27-28.