Starting July 1, Google will reduce the service fee it collects when a developer sells goods or services in the Google Play store by half for the first $1 million in revenue earned by a developer each year. Instead of Google taking a 30 percent cut, the search giant will only take 15 percent of the proceeds.
“These are funds that can help developers scale up at a critical phase of their growth by hiring more engineers, adding to their marketing staff, increasing server capacity, and more,” said Sameer Samat, VP of product management at Google.
Apple announced a similar fee reduction toward the end of last year. However, in the case of the Play Store, developers don’t need to apply to a program to take advantage of Google’s newfound generosity. What’s more, the company is making the fee reduction on the first million available to all developers, even those that easily make more than that in a single year. Notably, the change comes ahead of a policy Google will implement on September 30th that will require all developers to process their payments through the Play Store’s billing system.
Independent developers have long criticized both Apple and Google for taking too big of a cut off their work. Those criticisms turned into open protest last year when Epic Games intentionally broke both Apple’s and Google’s rules on in-app purchases. That action has led to an escalating legal feud between Epic and the two tech giants, with no end in sight.
