Apple Wants a 15% Cut Even When You Buy Outside Its App Store

Apple on August 14, 2026 submitted a proposal to a U.S. court detailing how much it plans to charge when people buy things through links that take them outside the App Store. The filing comes after the Supreme Court rejected Apple's attempt to pause the court case (TechCrunch, 2026-08-14).

Normally, when you buy something inside an iPhone app — a subscription, a game item, a service — Apple takes a cut of the sale. The new proposal is about a different situation: when an app shows you a link to a website, and you complete your purchase there instead of going through Apple's payment system. Apple still wants to take a percentage of those sales.

Under the proposal, the standard rate would be 15% for most apps. Small business developers would pay 5%. Developers in certain partner programs for video, news, and mini apps would pay 10%. Subscription renewals would also carry a 10% rate (TechCrunch, 2026-08-14).

Apple's filing includes a comparison to Google Play's rates for similar link-out purchases, as Apple sees them: 20% for standard apps, 15% for apps in special programs, and 10% for subscription renewals. The comparison appears intended to make Apple's proposed rates look competitive, though the court will judge the proposal on its own terms (TechCrunch, 2026-08-14).

For context, Apple's standard App Store commission is 30% for developers selling digital goods and services, with most developers eligible for a reduced rate under the Small Business Program (Apple, 2015-10-27). The new proposal would apply only to purchases routed through external links. This is the mechanism at the center of the ongoing lawsuit with Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, docketed as 4:20-cv-05640 in the Northern District of California (CourtListener).

The legal background matters. In March 2024, Epic Games told the court that Apple was "blatantly" violating a prior court order, pointing to a 27% fee Apple had started charging on external-link purchases (Reuters, 2025-05-01). On April 30, 2025, a U.S. judge ruled that Apple had indeed violated the court order to reform its App Store practices (Reuters, 2025-05-01).

Apple had argued that the court should wait for the Supreme Court to decide whether Apple was in contempt before requiring Apple to reveal its new commission rates. The Supreme Court rejected that argument, forcing Apple to put its numbers on the table (TechCrunch, 2026-08-14). A federal judge had already denied Apple's motion on August 11, 2026, confirming the court would continue assessing the commissions (Courthouse News, 2026-08-11).

Apple has already set up a similar system in Japan. In December 2025, Apple announced that apps on the App Store in Japan would pay a 15% commission on digital goods bought through websites linked from the app (Apple, 2025-12-17). The alignment between the Japanese framework and the U.S. proposal suggests Apple is moving toward a consistent global rate, though each country's terms are negotiated or decided separately.

Apple argued in its filing that it deserves to charge fees on purchases made by users of its devices to recover what it has spent on the tools, technology, and services that keep the App Store and its software ecosystem running (TechCrunch, 2026-08-14). The court had also ordered Apple to disclose how many apps in the U.S. App Store are eligible for the external link program (CourtListener).

The path here is straightforward when you look at the sequence. Apple first imposed a 27% commission on external-link purchases, was found to have violated a court order by doing so, tried to delay the case through the Supreme Court, was turned down, and has now proposed a much lower tiered structure. The 15% standard rate is nearly half the 27% figure that triggered the contempt finding. The 5% rate for small developers is a fraction of the 30% that has defined App Store economics for over a decade.

The proposal is just a proposal. The court will continue to assess whether these rates satisfy its requirements, and Epic Games will have the chance to challenge them. What Apple has done is put specific numbers on the table under legal pressure, after years of litigation and a contempt ruling. Whether 15% amounts to a real concession or another disputed middle ground is for the court, and eventually the market, to decide.