Google appears to be set to not only match the new developer revenue sharing model that Apple has announced, but to one-up it. The hubbub started yesterday when Apple announced that developers would move from a 70/30 split to an 85/15 split on revenue share. This is a very good thing for developers and came as a bit of a surprise from Apple. Almost immediately the question became if Google would match it for those developers on Android. The answer appears to be yes and to be even better.
With the Apple program, developers only move into the new 85/15 split on revenue on subscription apps and only after a customer has been a subscriber for at least one year. The 70/30 split
Google Play Developer Console
remains for traditional, non-subscription apps that you purchase as a one-off. Given that subscriptions are much harder to hold on to for developers, what looks like a pretty generous offer isn’t so great in the larger picture. People change their minds and cancel subscriptions quite often which means that getting to that one year threshold is a mighty tall hurdle.
According to Recode, Google is not only going to match this 85/15 split on subscription apps, but are going to one-up Apple by not requiring the one year wait period. In other words, if you have a subscription app, you will immediately see the 85% revenue. That’s a big deal and far more generous for developers. It should be noted that there is no timeline given in the Recode report on when this new policy will go into effect but the report does say that testing has already been happening.
