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When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

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Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#191

Post by zmk_ »

wlesieutre wrote: post #110
R0b0t1 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they obligated to do business with you? Typically the answer is no, but some countries (like Germany) stores can't ban people if they're the only store in a town. I'm not sure if this would work for Apple, but it might if you already own an iDevice.

I couldn't say. But here's the bit of their terms of service (for USA) that mentions refunds: > All Transactions are final. Content prices may change at any time. If technical problems prevent or unreasonably delay delivery of Content, your exclusive and sole remedy is either replacement of the Content or refund of the price paid, as determined by Apple. From time to time, Apple may refuse a refund request if we find…

As far as I know, in EU, you have a right to return anything that you bought online, no questions asked.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#192

Post by jandrese »

throwaway45349 wrote: post #171
erk__ wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam did not offer refunds at all until they came into trouble for it in Australia and the EU. That is what regulations are for.

Other than lack of refunds and poor support for a decade, Steam was still the most consumer friendly app store. They got everything else right .

The family plan settings on an account are certainly not an example of getting it right. You can share a library, have multiple linked accounts, but the instant any one of those accounts fires up a game all other accounts are locked out of the entire library. Not just the game that is currently running, but the everything. Valve missed the entire point of having a family account setup and every time I mention this I get “shut up pirate” as the response because having kids isn’t a valid use case.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#193

Post by im3w1l »

alewi481 wrote: post #119
indymike wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

App stores need competition, not regulation.

A positive aspect of Apple’s model is that it’s impossible for a malicious ad to trick an unsuspecting user into sideloading malware on their device.

The vast majority of apps are malware. In both Apple's and Google's app stores. It's gotten to the point that apps are assumed to harvest all information they have access to, store it permanently and sell it to anyone who asks.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#194

Post by thoraway1010 »

seancoleman wrote: post #147
chadlavi wrote: post #102

Payment processors generally don't refund fees on payments when the payments are refunded, this isn't new. It's remarkable mainly because (a) it's 30%, not 3% and (b) the App store doesn't position itself as a payments processor the way Stripe does, so it sounds really weird that they would act like one. If the app store took a 3% chunk and never refunded it regardless of the ongoing status of the transaction, that w…

Stripe does refund their fees with a transaction refund. I understand this may be novel for the payment processing industry though.

That's awesome! However, it WILL result in stripe attracting a LOT of the crappy billers (ie, folks who mislead / make customer unhappy etc). If your business is Other business obviously have MUCH higher refund rates (sneaky autobill businesses etc). For these loosing 5% on the refunds matters if they have a lot of refunds, so they'll be very tempted by no costs if you autobill and get caught. They'll just autorenew everyone, autosign up and then be VERY good about refunds to avoid chargebacks. Even if just 30% of customers don't catch a few months you end up with real money.

Of course, CUSTOMERS may hate these players, but stripe I guess is focused on what works for the businesses generating lots of refunds.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#195

Post by andreasley »

A Statement of Tim Cook for the House of Representatives claimed that "For the vast majority of apps on the App Store , developers keep 100% of the money they make." [1]

How can this be even remotely true if Apple takes a 30% commission for every sale in the App Store?

[1] https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20200729/110883/HHRG...

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#196

Post by wccrawford »

rconti wrote: post #173
ShinTakuya wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is that you're thinking of it the wrong way. See it this way: You make 3 sales of $100. One gets refunded. You get paid $200 - $90 = $110 instead of $140, because in practice Apple pays you in batches and doesn't pay immediately for each purchase.

Now I'm more confused. I get why it "should" be $140 but I have no idea where the $90 came from.

3 sales of $100 ($300) means 3x$30 ($90) in fees for Apple.

That should mean 3x$70 for you, $210.

But then one of those is refunded. Apple takes $100 from your account and gives it back to the customer. You end up with $110.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#197

Post by kemayo »

chadlavi wrote: post #102

Payment processors generally don't refund fees on payments when the payments are refunded, this isn't new. It's remarkable mainly because (a) it's 30%, not 3% and (b) the App store doesn't position itself as a payments processor the way Stripe does, so it sounds really weird that they would act like one. If the app store took a 3% chunk and never refunded it regardless of the ongoing status of the transaction, that w…

The normal structure for credit card processing is a few cents flat payment plus a percentage of the transaction[1].

Something like 5 cents + 1.5% would be a great deal on payment processing, generally. (Apple is a juggernaut and may have been able to negotiate something else, of course.)

That does mean that for a $0.99 app, keeping the fees would still be more than that 3%, at ~$0.07... but not wildly divergent from the 30% amount.

Where the 30% gets really abusive is for things like Codea, the app being talked about in the Twitter thread. It costs $14.99. So it had presumptive fees of ~$0.28, while Apple's keeping $4.50. That's outrageous.

(Also, I see mixed reports on whether credit card refunds refund the processing fees. It might be contract-dependent.)

[1]: https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-card...

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#199

Post by sbarre »

jmull wrote: post #189

I'm a little stuck on the terminology here. Does "customer refunds your paid app" mean the customer requests and gets a (full) refund from Apple for a prior app purchase? (I would say "returns" not "refunds" ... Apple is the one refunding, not the customer. The customer receives the refund. But I guess this is some kind of regional/informal usage I'm not familiar with.) If so, that's BS. Apple could reasonably keep t…

As per the thread:

You buy an app for $10, Apple gets $3, the developer gets $7.

You refund the app (through the Apple App Store), you get your 10$ back, but that whole 10$ comes from the developer, unlike the 7/3 split when you first purchased it.

So in the end, the developer has lost money due to the refund.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#200

Post by jmull »

rconti wrote: post #173
ShinTakuya wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is that you're thinking of it the wrong way. See it this way: You make 3 sales of $100. One gets refunded. You get paid $200 - $90 = $110 instead of $140, because in practice Apple pays you in batches and doesn't pay immediately for each purchase.

Now I'm more confused. I get why it "should" be $140 but I have no idea where the $90 came from.

I think the previous posted got confused.

Should be like:

You make three sales of $100 each. One is returned. You get $70 + $70 + $70 - $100 = $110. Apple gets $30 + $30 + $30 - $0 = $90.

That is, you get $70 for each purchase but lose $100 for each refund. Apple gets $30 for each purchase and loses $0 for each refund.

Apple has real costs for each transaction and the refund is not really its problem so it makes sense that it keep those transaction costs. But those aren't anywhere near 30% (well, actually on a $1-$2 purchase it might be, but too far beyond that).

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