Does it make sense for mobile games to switch to a web store following Apple's reduction of App Store fees in the EU?

Last week I shared a LinkedIn post about Apple's fee changes in the EU, and my honest take at the time was that games had the most to lose under the old system, and probably the most to gain now. Still stand by that for the rate cut itself — that part's free money, no argument needed. But since then I've actually sat down and run the numbers on the question that post left open, and it's a lot messier than the headline made it look.

So the actual question I'm trying to answer is:

Should you switch to a web store, or just do nothing and keep the fee cut?

I spent the last weekend chasing that down. Here's what I found.

On August 18, Apple quietly(!) revised its commission structure for the EU. The old “Core Technology Fee” charged on a per-app basis has been eliminated. It has been replaced by a simplified commission structure offering four options with four different rates. The trick is that once you select an option, you are required to stick with it for 12 months. The new structure is not yet in effect, though. It goes live on October 1.

The reduced rate applies to Small Business Program members, Mini Apps and Video Partners, and subscriptions that have completed their first year.

Two things particularly caught my eye at first glance. The initial acquisition fee and the store services fee have been completely eliminated. Apple now allows developers to use their own IAP systems and an alternative payment option simultaneously within the same app. Previously this was not possible — you had to choose one option and stick with it.

Does switching to a web store really make sense?

I came across a piece from Deconstructor of Fun that ran exactly this math, and it's the sharpest breakdown of this announcement I've seen. I liked the example enough to walk through it here too — same numbers — before I get into what I think it's still missing.

Take a mid-core studio doing $3M a month in EU iOS revenue, all through Apple IAP, on the old 30% rate.

Do nothing and the rate drops to 26%. That alone is worth $120K a month. About $1.4 million a year for zero engineering work.

Now the web shop math. Apple takes 15%, payment processing takes roughly another 3.5% — that leaves you keeping about 81.5% of whatever revenue actually survives checkout.

But not everyone survives checkout. Leaving the app and landing in a browser costs conversion every time. Say a fairly generous 70% of demand makes it through that handoff. Run it: $3M × 70% × 81.5% comes out to about $1.7M net.

Compare that to $2.22M from doing nothing. Switching just cost you half a million dollars a month, before you even count the engineering time.

Flip the math around and you need something close to 90% conversion through the entire web checkout just to match doing nothing. Honestly I didn't expect the bar to be that high.

Here is the part that bugs me about that math, though. It wasn't the numbers themselves — it was the 70% figure everyone, DoF included, me included, is just kind of assuming. Nobody's published a real, audited handoff-conversion benchmark for this yet. Vendors show you their best client. Skeptics show you their worst case. Both sound completely sure of themselves. Neither one is actually your number.

Same goes for that “web shops capture 25–30% of revenue” stat you've probably seen floating around somewhere. Almost always a vendor citing their best client, not a median.

One caveat before anyone goes and changes their payment setup: this is illustrative math, not a benchmark. Your actual conversion depends entirely on your checkout flow, whether you support saved cards, and your own player base — it is not something you can just borrow from someone else's dataset. This is correlational too, not a controlled test. Run it on a small slice of your own traffic before locking anything in for 12 months.

If you are a product manager reading this, the order of operations is pretty simple. Check which tier you already qualify for first — the 30-to-26 drop alone might just be free money. Add an alternative payment processor next to your existing IAP if you want a small edge with no migration cost. Save the full web checkout move for after you've actually measured your own conversion number, not someone else's.

Apple built a fee table that rewards patience and punishes whoever migrates on vibes. Run your own numbers first — and if you'd rather not take Deconstructor of Fun's math on faith, the full terms are on Apple's developer site, go read them yourself.

Sources: Apple Newsroom, August 18 2026; 30%–to–26% standard rate confirmed by The Motley Fool; breakeven-math framing via Deconstructor of Fun.