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Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

android-developers.googleblog.com

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Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#11

Post by ocdtrekkie »

Worth remembering that as good as it is that Google is reducing it's abusive taxation on third party developers, the primary reason they're doing this is to try to quiet the majority of developers asking for stronger government regulations against this taxation without actually reducing their profit much, since the large companies which bring in the majority of revenue still have to pay full price.

Basically, they're hoping that this will stop some app developers from demanding the right to use third party payment processors, which would likely be used many of the larger >$1 million revenue publishers.

The Android Police article about this cites an example from iOS, that "On Apple's App Store, the 98% of developers who qualified for a lower revenue share rate were responsible for less than 5% of Apple's total collected revenue"

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#12

Post by colechristensen »

Scoundreller wrote: post #4

When 0% first $1m? How much of a hit are they taking from 15%?

Google isn't going to pay your card processing fees for you, and there is a nonzero cost to hosting and moderating the absolutely enormous number of apps that get nearly 0 revenue.

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#13

Post by CGamesPlay »

psaux wrote: post #8
addicted wrote: post #3

I'm glad Google didn't choose the unnecessarily convoluted and worse solution Apple did that only adds more bureaucracy.

“ The App Store's standard commission rate of 30 percent remains in place for apps selling digital goods and services and making more than $1 million in proceeds, defined as a developer's post-commission earnings” [1] What is convoluted and worse? I am not a mobile Dev at this time, just going by what I see online. Edit: [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-s...

If you make $999k in revenue, you will receive almost $850k in profit. If you make $1000k in revenue, you will instead receive $700k in profit. You're strangely incentivized to completely shut down your app as you approach the 1000k mark, unless you're confident you'll make it past the 1200k mark, where it's worth it again. Silly system.

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#14

Post by lovedswain »

hanniabu wrote: post #5

I feel like they're feeling the pressure for a potential incumbent to come in and disrupt the market they've cornered. Who's in the best position to take a run on this? Or do you think it'd more likely to come from a new player?

They're only thing they're feeling is the pressure of multiple regulators analysing the fine print

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#15

Post by perryizgr8 »

howinteresting wrote: post #9
perryizgr8 wrote: post #7

Shouldn't this be inverted? Small devs with unknown apps have more to gain from play store's distribution, and won't mind paying 30% of a smaller revenue in exchange for all the help. Bigger apps like Netflix are already doing their own advertising and marketing and have close to zero to gain from play store. And they will be making a large amount of revenue. According to this they will have to pay 30% of a larger am…

As an exertion of raw power, yes, it would be inverted. But we live in a world where maximal exertion of raw power is looked down upon.

Don't most products and services offer a volume discount? Or something equivalent? I don't understand why the equation is reversed in this case. Does google not offer volume discounts to their big GCP customers? Is that also "looked down upon"?

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#16

Post by rabuse »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #13
psaux wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ The App Store's standard commission rate of 30 percent remains in place for apps selling digital goods and services and making more than $1 million in proceeds, defined as a developer's post-commission earnings” [1] What is convoluted and worse? I am not a mobile Dev at this time, just going by what I see online. Edit: [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-s...

If you make $999k in revenue, you will receive almost $850k in profit. If you make $1000k in revenue, you will instead receive $700k in profit. You're strangely incentivized to completely shut down your app as you approach the 1000k mark, unless you're confident you'll make it past the 1200k mark, where it's worth it again. Silly system.

That does seem terrible. It should be bracketed how our taxes are, honestly.

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#17

Post by adanto6840 »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #7

Shouldn't this be inverted? Small devs with unknown apps have more to gain from play store's distribution, and won't mind paying 30% of a smaller revenue in exchange for all the help. Bigger apps like Netflix are already doing their own advertising and marketing and have close to zero to gain from play store. And they will be making a large amount of revenue. According to this they will have to pay 30% of a larger am…

Valve [Steam] does this "inverted" model, as of ~ December 2018... It wasn't overly well-received on the PR front -- though I do suspect that it earned them a decent bit of AAA title/publisher credit, heh.

Realistically, that's probably where much of the money is at; if anything, props to them for getting away with it.

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#18

Post by psaux »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #13
psaux wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ The App Store's standard commission rate of 30 percent remains in place for apps selling digital goods and services and making more than $1 million in proceeds, defined as a developer's post-commission earnings” [1] What is convoluted and worse? I am not a mobile Dev at this time, just going by what I see online. Edit: [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-s...

If you make $999k in revenue, you will receive almost $850k in profit. If you make $1000k in revenue, you will instead receive $700k in profit. You're strangely incentivized to completely shut down your app as you approach the 1000k mark, unless you're confident you'll make it past the 1200k mark, where it's worth it again. Silly system.

Thank you, great information. Those incentives then have to change. I wrote a few apps back in the day, and 30% seemed high, but I never hit over $100k in rev. I was hoping the little guy who scaled would have won here.

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#19

Post by SilverRed »

colechristensen wrote: post #12
Scoundreller wrote: post #4

When 0% first $1m? How much of a hit are they taking from 15%?

Google isn't going to pay your card processing fees for you, and there is a nonzero cost to hosting and moderating the absolutely enormous number of apps that get nearly 0 revenue.

I think 30% is actually perfectly fine for what they offer. Unlike on iOS, google gives you the option to opt out and distribute your own app with your own payments.

30% seems like a reasonable fee but the problem is when you are forced to pay it. As a small dev I'm happy to pay 30% for what is a great value. A company like netflix probably doesn't see as much value when the cost of doing their own payment processing becomes cheaper.

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#20

Post by natex »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11

Worth remembering that as good as it is that Google is reducing it's abusive taxation on third party developers, the primary reason they're doing this is to try to quiet the majority of developers asking for stronger government regulations against this taxation without actually reducing their profit much, since the large companies which bring in the majority of revenue still have to pay full price. Basically, they're…

Is your feeling on what Google's hopes speculation, or do you have some inside information?
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