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Apple’s App Store profits on commissions from digital sales

    Revenue          $32 B
    Operating Costs   $7 B [1]
    Estimated Profit $25 B 
    Operating Margin ~78%

[1] R&D, security, hosting, human review, and including building and maintaining developer tools Xcode, APIs, and SDKs.

Apple could take just 7% cut and still make 20% profits.

Fun Fact: During the Epic trial, it was revealed that Apple's profit margins on the App Store were so high that even Apple's own executives were sometimes surprised by the internal financial reports.

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edit: There is no ideological argument for voluntary action here. The entire goal is to force regulators to step in. The debate over 'good vs. bad companies' is just online noise and rhetorical trik, no one on either side of the political spectrum wants these systems to be fixed voluntarily with corporate altruism.

How long until they make the argument that they're entitled to 30% of your salary because you use Apple hardware to do your work?

2035: Apple takes 30% of my Patreon, Google matched it through their "Competitive Parity Agreement," and the EU fined them both €2 billion which they paid in 45 minutes of revenue then raised fees to 32% to cover legal costs.

The real innovation was convincing us this was inevitable.

The wealthiest company in the world really needs that last little bit from those Patreon creators who have it way too easy in their lives. It's not as if the people that take that meager bit of cash are going to invest it in Apple stock so they're going to have to pay up.

The Mafia can learn a thing or two from Cook.

Sometimes I think the 30% was supposed to be 3% originally, and no one noticed the decimal was in the wrong place when they shipped it, and then people paid it anyway, so they kept it.

30% is just so unreasonable that it would be totally understandable if someone would believe this.

I still can't believe developers love to work for this feudal overlord. They are building a wall around our profession. Have a little foresight and move your business elsewhere.

I actually love Apple for pushing this matter this hard and sticking to its guns. This will bring in more regulatory scrutiny not just in the U.S. but in other countries as well. That will force Apple to give up (maybe in a decade or so) this practice of arbitrary rules and squeezing the last penny from others.

Thanks a lot, Eddy Cue, for all that you do to bring Apple down to its knees!

Apps bad. Web good.

Why did we let mobile go down the one-app-per-website path?

Just do what we all do to dodge this, have the Account management and purchasing abilities sit inside an embedded browser window that opens up from a button push in the app. Yes it adds a little barrier but with Apple Pay it is a very small barrier and the juice is worth the squeeze.

I don't get it. Apple is the top 3 most valuable companies in the WORLD. THE WORLD. They act like a greedy friend that would ask you to pay back $1.54 for a meal of $1500, because you ordered a side of fries which they did not eat.

Aren't they making the majority of their money from selling hardware and iCloud subscriptions? Why they go on and milk developers, who make apps FOR THEIR ECOSYSTEM?!

Just stop publishing the app, not every little thing needs an app. What the use for the app anyway? Notifications and apple pay?

You can be the patron of a creator and Apple in the same time! Jokes aside, this is awful...I like/use Apple products but this unacceptable, I hope everyone dodges this and pays through the website

Interestingly, Patreon doesn't give creators an option of "Just don't accept donations for us from Apple users" instead, which is what my old project (SQLite Browser / DB Browser for SQLite) would have gone with if available. :(

I've instead handed the reins to others, so I don't have skin in this game any more. ;)

Patiently waiting for a mandatory 30% fee on every transaction made with iOS banking software. Maybe that'll put a definitive stop to forcing mobile "apps" with jailbreak detection on customers and have banks think twice before crippling the functionality of their websites.

Please Apple, make this happen.

I think this is relevant, Cory Doctorow's recent speech to Canadian government and texh leaders: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/29/post-american-canada/#ott...

He talks about Apple's app store

Take from the poorest to give to the richest of the rich -- that is the new way of doing business.

I feel like I've just watched a man in a $4000 suit wresting the change jar out of the hands of a homeless person

What are you going to do about it? Use Android?

This means Apple is literally going to take nearly 3x in fees from Patreon's customers than Patreon is taking from their own customers.

My understanding is that the reason the number 30% is so magical is a historical anomaly. When software was physically distributed back in the day, 15% of the MSRP was reserved for the distributor and another 15% for the retailer. When these digital marketplaces were set up, the companies just said "well, we're the distributor and the retailer, so we'll keep both". Forgetting the fact that the cost to distribute and retail the software is literally pennies on the dollar of what it used to be.

I think the irony in this case is that this is a greed problem of their own making. When Steve Jobs announced that apps on the original iPhone would only be $1-$3, he set off the first enshittification crisis in the software industry. In 2008, Bejeweled cost $19.99 if you wanted to buy it on the PC. On the iPhone it was $0.99! This artificially low anchor price is what kicked off the adoption of ad and subscription driven software models in the first place.

Question for the indie developers here; do you get more paying users from Apple devices?

I’ve never even considered publishing apps for other platforms as my gut tells me juice wouldn’t be worth the squeeze. Or to put it another way, I would prefer customers who already proved they have deep(er) pockets and are price insensitive.

The amount of people defending this because it's apple in here is astounding. This is possibly the least consumer friendly thing apple has done in a while, and that's saying something.

To keep their growth rates going, these mega companies soon need to swallow the whole country’s GDP. I really wonder where this is going. They can’t keep growing at some point.

Didn't apple lose the case brought against them by Epic for this very reason? Are they still operating illegally against the order of the court?[0]

[0]: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/20...

And this is a big part of why I don't own an iOS device, and likely won't be purchasing another laptop from them, despite liking the hardware generally.

Not that I like Google much more re: Android and locking down side-loading more than before.

I’m surprised at the comments here. Why should the government set the “right” margin?

If you cap the margin, you’re entrenching the monopoly forever. Allow them to charge what they want, and set tax rates on corporations commensurate with the size of their profits. Make it easier for competitors to start.

The path to a sustainable marketplace does not come from top down enforcement of margins. It comes from competition

While its true that creators often share "extras" in return for support, it's crazy to call the support itself a "digital good." I can only assume they mean it is digitally good for their business.

I don't understand, doesn't the market solve these issues? Here's what I figure would happen:

1. App creators will pass the extra cost over to the iPhone users.

2. Android (and other platforms that can host smartphone apps) will be more competitive and start to look better for both app creators and consumers.

Sure, there's a bit of a context switching cost. Not everyone will just be able to automatically change over to an Android phone tomorrow. But it doesn't need to happen all at once. These phones get updated and replaced every 1-2 years. If iOS users see their app store prices rising too high, and they aren't OK with this, then they will switch to Android eventually, once it's worth it.

Otherwise, I don't see any problem with Apple reaping the benefit of their powerful and well-built walled garden ecosystem.

I’ve heard it said that monopolies aren’t a flaw of the system—they’re its product. What else could perpetual, cutthroat competition lead to? This isn’t an unintended consequence. In every new era, even when an industry is disrupted or reinvented, a small number of dominant companies work aggressively to prevent real upheaval—by acquiring smaller competitors, engaging in regulatory capture, and shaping the rules in their favor. Historically, governments have often served the interests of their corporate patrons. The system itself is built for maximal extraction, and there is no “invisible hand” waiting in the wings to protect consumers. There are no evil and good CEOs, just cogs in this machine doing what they're incentivized to do, accumulate.

I miss the old school monopolies, where MS was a bad guy because they dared to include browser.

And yes, I do legalese details of that are much more complex. But it just makes no common sense.

Apple is doing to creators what the recording industry did to musicians. Enjoy what's left of the Golden Age of Patreon content because greed is going to suffocate it out of existence.

Wait a minute, there is a payment surface you can build in iOS(e.g. iirc a stripe demo video from the epic ruling last year), where one can pay outside the apple in-app payment method. The surface could specifically get you to your own web view(i.e. your own domain or stripe's surface) for payments. The bigger idea, I thought, would not let apple figure out a company's take was, to ask them to pay up.

How does this shakedown work for companies/orgs that have large number of paying iOS DAUs?

What am I not getting here?

> "According to TechCrunch, only 4% of Patreon creators are still using the platform's legacy billing system, with the rest having already switched over."

The very last line of the article.

Incoming "please pay on webpage, else you have to pay 30% more" banner in the app

Boycott Apple services. It’s the only way they will listen.

If a fan starts a $10/mo Patreon membership inside the iOS app, Apple's subscription terms imply $3/mo goes to Apple for the first year (then $1.50/mo after), and Patreon's platform fee still applies on top. Patreon says Apple is also forcing the remaining ~4% of creators using legacy billing to migrate to subscription billing by Nov 1, 2026 or risk the app being pulled. That's a meaningful hit to creator economics for something that's closer to "patronage" than a typical in-app digital good.

I don't pay attention to all of Apples behaviors (still running an iphone 11) but this feels quite rent-seeky and creator hostile.

seems that 96% are already doing this:

> According to TechCrunch, only 4% of Patreon creators are still using the platform's legacy billing system, with the rest having already switched over.

I've never used the Patreon app even once -- those creators I support, I set it up on the website.

What bugs me about this isn't even the 30% in isolation, it's the category creep

I thought that already happened :)

But from past threads in a Linux Forum, seems this only applies to people using the Apple IOS App for Patreon. Not sure if using Apple Laptops.

But if you use Patreon's WEB Site directly, the fee cannot be collected by Apple.

That was my take anyways.

Well, I certainly won't sell my fiction to Apple for them to turn it into a series in the future.

Unless they pay me 30% of all hardware and software revenue because popularity is a vehicle to sell more under the Apple brand.

With this logic, one should pay Google for making purchases in their browser or Netflix should pay e.g. Samsung a fee, as users consume content on their devices. Truly ridiculous.

The regulator must step in now and allow installing applications outside of the AppStore! We are witnessing in real-time what a monopoly and a walled garden leads to.

I'm not betting the US to do this right now. But look at the EU... Alternative app stores are allowed (forced by EU regulations), and it already lead to lower fees.

The vast majority of people will continue find and install (and pay for) stuff via the AppStore.

Let this be a cautionary tale for Google's plans with Android (developer verification, etc).

If I'm patreon, here's what I'm doing:

Jack up every Apple user's monthly payment by 30%.

When they go into the app to figure out what the hell happened, they will find big red text saying "want to avoid the Apple tax? re-subscribe through our website! (Link)"

They click the link, it opens a webpage where all the payment info has been auto-filled. They click "ok." Bam, fee gone.

So the company that also lets you support your favorite podcasts via a subscription decided their competitor should pay 30% more just to do the same thing? Cool.

If I buy a gift card through my banking app, using reward points, is Apple entitled to 30% of that?

Why can't Patreon hike up prices in their iPhone app?

It would not only shift the cost to the user, it makes them cover the 30%, while discouraging the use of the iPhone app itself.

They could add a banner before the payment is processed that says "you could be paying less for the same benefit to the patron if you pay from our website. The price is higher here because of Apple, and you're covering the fee."

The Beggar Barons strike again! https://zedshaw.com/blog/2022-02-05-the-beggar-barons/

Can someone explain how much of value the iOS app is to users? I'm a noob at Patreon, aren't creators receiving their support through the website's payment gateway already? I'm not really against a company setting the rules if it's their platform, if the market cannot accept it then alternatives (competitors) will eventually find new ways.

This was a great reminder to me that I needed to cancel every subscription I have tied to my Apple account. I'll give it to them though, they do make it very easy - I just cancelled all 10 of them in 10 seconds.

Insane PR move to further whittle down direct payments to people's favorite content creators

4% of Patreon iOS users. That's how many use the legacy system Apple is insisting they remove. The other 96% already are using IAP.

Tech companies are pushing their clients step by step out of new devices, platforms, subscription services, SaaS, ... Governments are pushing citizens step by step into Tech to control and tax their lives. At the end we, as simple humans, are always in the middle.

So weird, why do you need Patreon dedicated app in appstore?

There is really so many people visiting Patreon, only because it's in Crapple appstore?

Or is this because they want to support as many payment methods as possible. And Apple Pay support requirements is to have an app?

Would be great, if they simple take a hit and gutted the app and redirect all people into website.

If they have good PR team, with proper messaging, they could make even more money, since people on Patreon usually don't like corpos.

For those who, like me, are looking to break free from Apple but were tied to it through photo storage in iCloud, here's a first step towards independence: Immich! I self-host an instance for my whole family, and it works like a charm.

For anyone seeking more info, check out these articles -

https://www.patreon.com/posts/apple-has-its-on-148395613

https://www.patreon.com/posts/128473586

It cannot be said enough: Do not use apps! We already have the web! Tell everyone you know.

If I were a creator, I'd start looking into platforms other than Patreon. What does Patreon offer that makes them worth giving up 30% of my revenue?

Does this apply to creators that aren't even in the Apple ecosystem or is it only for the patreons paying through the iOS app? What if everyone moved to the website?

I assume this is only for purchases made using the app, right?

Otherwise it just wouldn't make sense. Google gets a cut of all revenue, Apple gets a cut of all revenue, x, y, z, ... there would be nothing left over.

Who pays for Patreon via iOS?

if many people subscribe via ios then obviously apple is bringing creators more paying subscribers no so seems kinda fair to charge for access to that ecosystem?

Sounds ... like the mafia.

You MUST use our billing system. Oh, btw, because you are using our billing system, we get 30%.

web is now so good that mobile apps lost any meaning to exist - unless you need to access some local hw or data on consistent basis(the app must run as daemon or something like that). in other words, if you app is a service, just use web. if it is not a service, then you just sell it as you would a desktop program.

The dark side of your walled garden is they can abuse you as they see fit, and when they become a giant, your options are to like it or leave.

Really shitty to see how greed and money corrupts everything.

"Use our payment system"

"No thanks, our current system works just fine"

".. or get kicked off our store"

"Okay, I guess I'll do it then"

"Okay you're on our payment system; we take 30% off all purchased using our payment system."

"Get fucked"

> Note: This image has been edited to include a pile of cash.

I giggled

The core problem is still the same.

Until there will be a broad regulation that enforce any general purpose computing device to allow installing non-provisioned apps, we'll be in those situations.

Isn't Patreon effectively a sort of payment processor? So how is this different from Apple demanding a 30% cut of transactions conducted by (for example) Paypal? (Assuming Paypal has an iOS app ofc, I have no idea.)

every system that gets too greedy eventually gets squashed (e.g. regulations) or kills its host (e.g. cancer).

I've noticed watching blood money on Netflix that greedy systems tend to get greedier and greedier, and this is the best way to catch bad actors.

On the other hand, criminals that try not to become too big and remain low-profile are the ones that never get caught.

This is low even for apple. They havent earned commision on this at all

How does this work if I signed up to patreon on the web and have never used the app?

Can't they just remove this option from app and redirect to the web? Wasn't this the same story with Spotify?

Happy to pay 42% higher Patreon fees in exchange for ease of subscription control, visibility, safety and ease of payment with in-app Apple payments.

It’s funny seeing people call 78% operating margin too high, while we all know that software VCs demand 90% margin from their startups, and if it wasn’t Apple, people here would call that an excellent business.

Apple obviously needs this to save themselves from bankruptcy.

Ok, cool - Apple is doing Apple things. And Patreon: will they comply?

Man that should not be allowed. 30% (pre-tax) loss, plus taxes, plus platform cost. Thats insane

Just to put things into perspective: Visa and MasterCard interchange fee in EU is 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards. Apple taking 100x this is just ridiculous.

Apple has an Apple Pay for Donations[1] program, which doesn't apply for rent seeking entities like Patreon. I wonder if Patreon's 10% fee is commensurate with the negligible value that they provide?

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/nonprofits/

I call this the Apple "idiot tax" - 'cos you have to be an idiot in letting Apple exploit you (the developer and the user) this brazenly.

For the price of paying Apple, Patreon should be able to develop a web app instead. Why isn't this happening? Why an app when the web will do?

I think I’m old enough to have experienced this cycle so many times with so many businesses that I just feel kind of silly to hate on Apple or Microsoft or whoever. They’re all just maximizing profits as designed.

I think people find it easier to scowl at the villain du jour than to dig into the deep complex issue of when capitalism doesn’t work, when the government isn’t doing enough, and what we could do about it… or the feeling that we really can’t do much.

Can't they just link out to their site to do billing?

So how do I avoid apple taking the cut? Unsubscribe from people in my ios app and resubscribe on the web? I subscribe to super small creators where this 30% cut makes a meaningful difference.

They work to make Apple rich. It's a bit like the mafia, but not as rememberable.

Apple's ecosystem is the 8th wonder of this world. Nowhere else you can put a logo on a piece of cloth or aluminum wheel and sell them for hundreds of dollars. Greatest capitalist company of all time.

Not cool Apple, bad look, I like you less for this.

Isn’t this what Epic just sued and won over?

Technofeudalism at its finest.

That's why the DSA is a good idea that should be replicated worldwide.

Too many parasites between creators and consumers

With only two mobile OS providers, they should be highly regulated. But given Tim Cook gave Trump a golden award and attended the premiere of the Melania documentary, I doubt they’ll get any antitrust trouble. Disappointing rent seeking behavior.

how is this legal

are they going to pay 30% towards refunds/fines etc. due to crimes committed using iOS?

This is why holding Apple stock is almost a can't lose.

Soon Google will do the same thing. And then what?

The practical way out is to just buy QQQ and get some of your money back.

Am I the only one that dislikes phone apps?! For example, I do NOT want to install an app for my power company. Just text/email me if you need to reach me and I can do anything else through their website.

I do support apps that support unique phone features: Phone, camera, GPS, etc.

Apple has an impressive commitment to evil, similar to Oracle. They get better at it every year.

Imagine if Visa or Mastercard decided they were going to take a 30% cut as a merchant fee. Governments wouldn't allow it. Why does Apple get a complete pass?

Nostr and Zaps, problem solved.

Attitude like a true mob boss.

Sad, mean, and pointless

Ahaha.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

I mean, keep buying their phones or whatever.

TLDR: if you still have any Patreon subscriptions through Apple’s in-app-purchase flow (look in Settings > Apple Account > Subscriptions) cancel them and restart them on patreon.com

"Nice business model ya got there, sure would be a shame if somethin' happened to it."

What is the strategy for “app” distribution for the mobile market that bypasses iOS / other vendors ? Is this even possible?

with the direction their hardware is going, that's not going to last another decade

I think it’s not that simple. These are not my words and I cannot only post the link [0] as the author uses the referrer to hide his articles from HN, but here’s the text:

Once again, Patreon is going to strong-arm all of us into "charge at the moment of sign-up" instead of "charge on the first of the month." They have wanted this for years, and once again they are saying that Apple has given them cover to demand it. Here's what I wrote when they tried to pull this shit a year and a half ago and then chickened out:

Patreon has two billing models, monthly (bills on the first of the month, or whenever they get around to it) and daily (charges you the moment you sign up.)

For several years now, they have been trying really hard to get creators to switch to daily billing whether they like it or not, with a series of intrusive nags and dark patterns. E.g., the "Settings" tab always has an "unread" alert on it reminding me that I have not made the "recommended" change.

Now they're going to force everyone to switch, and they're blaming Apple for it. And, to be clear, fuck Apple, but also fuck Patreon, this is their choice and it's going to mean that I can no longer use their service.

Here's a support request I just sent them, again, after clicking 15 levels deep into their FAQ before finding the thing that might contact a human. Since the email alerting me of this change came from a "noreply" address because of course it did.

Feel free to send your own:

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Subject: Subscription billing is unacceptable

You recently sent mail saying that you're going to force me to switch from monthly billing to subscription billing.

Subscription billing is unacceptable for my Patreon. It does not work.

I sell monthly memberships to a physical nightclub. The memberships begin on the first of the month. I fulfill and mail the physical membership cards on the first of the month. If you make me switch to daily billing, that means I will have to do merch fulfillment on a daily basis instead, and I simply cannot do that.

If you force me to switch from a monthly cycle to a daily cycle I will have no choice but to stop using Patreon.

To be clear: I do not give a shit about the iOS app. Not one fractional fuck is given. If the solution to this problem is that people cannot sign up for, or access, my Patreon from the iOS app, that is 100% acceptable to me.

I know for a fact that none -- zero, 0% -- of my patrons have signed up using the iOS app. I know this because I had to warn them away from it, due to the 30% Apple Tax, and all of them complied. All of them. The iOS app is utterly meaningless to me and to my patrons.

(Also you are blaming this on Apple's bullying, which is simply not credible. You've been nagging me to change to subscription billing for years, with the little red error icon appearing everywhere. This is your decision. You are transparently using Apple as an excuse.)

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I said this same thing to you a year and a half ago, the last time you tried to pull this nonsense. Second verse, same as the first. Last time, support replied that they "completely get why this change would be upsetting" and "will bring my feedback to the team." Uh huh.

Patreon's absolutely awful level of service and support has been a huge problem for quite some time, but I am really not looking forward to having to figure out how to implement recurring monthly billing on my own.

Patreon, YOU HAD ONE JOB.

[0] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/patreon-is-lying-again-and-...

This is obscene.

There's a kind of dissonance here that Patreon should be allowed to take a cut, being a platform on which creators can earn money - but Apple should not be allowed to take a cut, being a platform on which companies can operate their business.

Apple doing Apple things... nothing to see here

If only we could find a way to blame Putin for this.

Always hated apple for their putrid business practices. Add this to the pile.

Greed

Why would anyone use Patreon’s app?

When the App Store first launched I think 30% was pretty fair fee for Apple to collect, but that was a long time ago, and before IAP/Subscriptions. Apple might still be entitled to some percentage but they've expanded to cover more and more things (like this Patreon change or Kindle back in the day) and now we have moved far, far beyond the pale.

Apple (perhaps like all corporations but I'm focusing on Apple) is a greedy company that has massively lost it's way. Tim Cook support fascists and/or anything to improve the bottom line, especially if it increases "services" [0]. Alan Dye (thank god he is now busy screwing up Meta) shipped the worst UI revamp I've seen in a while from a company Apple's size and the iOS/iPadOS/visionOS/macOS software is all in dire straits. And they managed to do all of this while alienating developers left and right and playing chicken with governments around the world [0] instead of relaxing their hold on their platforms.

But who cares? The stock price went up. /s

I was overjoyed to see Alan Dye leave (and Jony Ive) and hope that we don't have to wait too much longer to bid Tim Cook adieu. Whoever takes over next has a lot of work ahead to dig out of the hole Tim Cook dug for Apple.

Tim Cook might be the best thing for shareholders but he has been horrible for product quality (software and hardware) and for democracy.

[0] Pay no attention to how much of services revenue came from the Google search deal with the majority of the rest coming from casinos for children and adults alike.

[1] Like the EU DMA, which, I have publicly and privately voiced my dislike of parts of it but Apple has no one to blame but themselves. By keeping a white-knuckle grip on their revenue they forced governments across the world to pass laws (often bad IMHO) that fragment and confuse the entire iOS market.

Should be 50% at least.