Apple's 15% External Purchase Fee vs Its Standard In-App Commission: What the Epic Games Filing Changes

Apple has floated a 15% fee on purchases that start with a link inside a US iOS app but complete outside the App Store, in a new filing tied to the long-running Epic Games v. Apple case. The number comes from reporting surfaced through Google News covering the court docket, and it matters because it sets the rate the company would charge on purchases it does not otherwise touch.

What Did Apple Propose in the Epic Games Filing?

According to the Google News item on the docket, Apple's proposal would apply a 15% cut to purchases that originate from an external-purchase link placed inside a US iOS app. That link-out mechanism exists because of the court order in Epic Games v. Apple that forced Apple to let developers point users to outside payment pages. The filing frames the 15% figure as Apple's answer to how it wants to be paid once a user leaves the app to pay somewhere else.

How Does 15% Compare With Standard App Store Commissions?

The reporting does not lay out Apple's full in-app commission schedule, so we are not going to put a second number next to the 15% figure here. What the filing does make clear is that Apple is treating external purchases as a distinct category with its own rate, separate from whatever a developer pays for a transaction completed inside the App Store itself. That split — one rate for in-app checkout, another for link-outs — is the actual comparison at the center of the case, more than any single percentage.

Why Does the Fee Target External US Purchases Specifically?

The external-link mechanism only exists in the US market because the underlying court order that created it came out of a US antitrust case. Apple's 15% proposal is scoped to that same geography because it is responding directly to the terms of that order, not writing a global policy. Any developer outside the US reading headlines about this figure should note the scope: it is a US filing addressing a US remedy, not a worldwide rate change.

Where Does the Case Go From Here?

A proposal inside a filing is not a final rule. Epic Games and the court still have to weigh in, and prior rounds of this same dispute have shown that proposed rates can get rejected or revised before anything sticks. Developers who build revenue models around external payment links are watching this specific number because it changes the math on whether routing a purchase outside the app actually saves money once Apple's cut on that path is factored in.

For teams trying to model what any fee change does to their actual numbers, the mechanics matter more than the headline rate. Tracking how purchases, subscriptions, and refunds move through both in-app and external paths is the only way to see the real effect, which is part of why we watched Apple's own reporting tools closely when the company expanded App Store Connect Analytics past 100 metrics — more granular data is useful exactly when fee structures get more complicated.

The 15% figure is worth tracking as a single data point in an ongoing case, not as a settled outcome. Until a court accepts or rejects it, the number is Apple's opening position in a negotiation it did not start voluntarily.