Apple Wants 15% Fee on External iOS Purchases Despite App Store Bypass Ruling

TL;DR

• Apple has asked a federal judge to allow it to charge up to a 15% commission on purchases made via external links in iOS apps, arguing it is entitled to compensation for its platform and intellectual property even when transactions happen outside the App Store.
• The request comes after Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled Apple violated a 2021 injunction requiring it to allow developers to steer users to alternative payment options without fees or restrictive warnings.
• If approved, the fee would significantly blunt the impact of the App Store bypass ruling for developers and consumers, while setting a major precedent for how far Apple's control over the iOS economy extends.

A Familiar Fight With a New Price Tag

Apple is back in court trying to preserve its cut of iOS transactions, even those it doesn't directly process. In a new filing with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the company is asking Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to modify the injunction in the Epic Games v. Apple case to let it collect a commission of up to 15% on purchases made through external links — the very links Apple was ordered to allow free of charge.

The proposal marks the latest escalation in a five-year antitrust battle over who controls the iPhone economy, and how much that control is worth. While Apple frames the fee as a fair licensing charge, critics say it's an attempt to claw back the revenue the court explicitly told it to give up.

How We Got Here: The Anti-Steering Injunction

The current dispute traces back to the 2021 ruling in Epic v. Apple. While Apple won on most antitrust counts, Judge Gonzalez Rogers issued a key injunction: Apple could no longer prohibit developers from directing users to alternative payment methods outside the App Store — so-called anti-steering rules.

Apple complied in a narrow way, allowing external links but imposing a 27% commission on outside purchases (12% for Small Business Program members), along with warning screens and strict design requirements for the links. Developers and Epic argued this made the alternative effectively meaningless.

On April 30, 2025, Gonzalez Rogers agreed. In a scathing contempt order, she found Apple had willfully violated the injunction, that its 27% fee and scare screens were designed to maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream, and ordered Apple to immediately stop collecting any commission on external purchases and to drop its restrictions on how developers present those links. She also referred Apple and one of its executives to federal prosecutors for potential criminal contempt.

Apple appealed to the Ninth Circuit and has continued to fight the order. The new 15% proposal is its attempt to get the court to walk back the zero-commission requirement.

What Apple Is Actually Proposing Now

In its latest motion, Apple is no longer defending the 27% rate. Instead, it is asking the court for permission to charge a reduced, tiered commission of up to 15% on web purchases initiated from within an iOS app.

According to the filing, Apple argues that a zero-commission model amounts to a compulsory free license of its intellectual property. The company contends it provides immense value — including app distribution, discovery, development tools like Xcode and Swift, APIs, and security and privacy protections — that makes the external transaction possible in the first place, even if payment is completed on the web.

Under the proposed framework, Apple would charge 15% for standard developers and a lower rate for small businesses and subscription renewals after one year, mirroring the structure of its in-app App Store rates but at roughly half the cost. The company says the fee would be collected through self-reporting and auditing, rather than through its own payment system, and would be necessary to prevent free-riding on its platform investments.

Apple has also argued that other platforms and patent licensing models support ongoing compensation for use of a platform, even when the final sale occurs elsewhere.

Why Developers Say 15% Is Still Too Much

For developers, especially large ones like Epic, Spotify, and Match Group, any commission on external purchases defeats the purpose of the injunction. They argue that once a user leaves the App Store to pay on the web, Apple has provided no payment processing, hosting, or customer service, and therefore has no right to a cut.

The Coalition for App Fairness and several developer advocates have already filed opposition, stating that a 15% fee would still force most developers to keep using Apple's in-app purchase system, which charges 15% to 30%. After factoring in payment processing fees from Stripe or PayPal (typically 2.9% + $0.30) plus the proposed Apple fee and the cost of auditing and reporting, the savings from going external would be marginal or negative.

Smaller developers are particularly concerned about the administrative burden. Tracking external web sales attributable to an iOS link click and reporting them to Apple would create new accounting and privacy complexities that didn't exist under the court's zero-fee order.

What It Means for Consumers

Apple's proposal also has direct implications for iPhone users. The original injunction was intended to foster price competition. If developers could avoid Apple's 30% cut, they could theoretically pass savings on to consumers through lower prices on the web — as Epic, Spotify, and Netflix have already begun to do since the April 2025 order removed fees.

If a 15% commission is reinstated, that incentive shrinks dramatically. Developers would have less reason to offer discounted web prices, and consumers would be less likely to see cheaper options outside the App Store. Apple, however, argues that its commission funds the security and curation that consumers expect from iOS, and that allowing completely free external payments would undermine the integrated experience that differentiates the iPhone.

What's at Stake and What Happens Next

At its core, this is a fight over the definition of the App Store itself. Is it a store where Apple only gets paid when it processes the transaction, or is it a platform where Apple gets paid for access to its billion-plus user base regardless of where the payment happens?

Judge Gonzalez Rogers has shown little patience for Apple's previous attempts to monetize external links, and it is not certain she will grant the modification. The Ninth Circuit is also weighing Apple's appeal of the contempt finding, and the case could eventually be headed to the Supreme Court.

If the court denies Apple's request, the current status quo remains: developers can link to the web for payments without paying Apple anything and without intrusive warning screens. If the 15% fee is approved, it would create a new industry standard for "platform taxes" that could influence ongoing antitrust cases against Apple and Google in the U.S. and the European Union under the Digital Markets Act.

A decision on the motion is expected in the coming weeks after briefing and a hearing. Until then, developers are free to offer external payment links commission-free — but they are building their businesses knowing Apple is actively working to put a price back on that freedom.

AndroGuider Team

Articles written by the AndroGuider team. We try to make them thorough and informational while being easy to read.