Google today announced that it will open up the Play Store to external payments starting on June 30 in the US, UK, and Europe.
In a post on the Android Developers Blog, Google details changes being made to Play Store billing rules on Android, changes made in the aftermath of a years-long legal dispute with Epic Games that (mostly) wrapped up earlier this year.
Today’s announcement sets a start date on lower fees and the ability for Android developers to use external billing alongside Play Store distribution – June 30. That’s when the updates kick in for major markets including the US, UK, and European Economic Area.
The new policy sees developers paying 10% fees on their first $1,000,000 in annual earnings regardless of billing method, whether that be Google Play Billing, an alternate built-in system, or external links for billing outside of the app. That’s well down from the 30% cut that was standard when this whole dispute first began.
After the first $1,000,000, Google’s fees go up for transactions other than auto-renewing subscriptions, with “new installs” seeing a lower cut than “existing installs,” the latter referring to users that had the app installed prior to this policy change. There’s also a 5% fee from the use of Google Play Billing, should developers opt to use that.
