In November, Epic and Google jointly proposed a settlement that would change Android’s fate globally without cracking open Google’s Android monopoly quite the way it otherwise might. Today, Google has decided it’s not waiting for that settlement to be approved: it’s moving forward with many of its proposed changes right now, rolling them out globally through 2027.
By June 30th, Google writes, it will lower its app store fees in the US, UK, and European Economic Area to 20 percent or less, down from 30 percent. By the end of the year, it will launch a “Registered App Stores” program outside of the US, so that you can download and install third-party app stores (like the Epic Games Store) from the web without the friction that Google erected previously.
Google will also let app developers offer their own billing systems “alongside Google Play’s billing,” and so it’s separating its billing fees from its service fees in the calculations you’ll see below.
Here is the breakdown and example images of lower app store fees, according to Google, though you’ll note some involve signing up for specific programs whose terms have not yet been disclosed:
Billing: For those developers who choose to use Google Play’s billing system, they will be charged a market-specific rate separate from the service fee. In the European Economic Area (EEA), UK, and US that rate will be 5%.
Service Fees: For new installs (first time installs from users after the new fees are launched in a region), we are reducing the in-app purchase (IAP) service fee to 20%.
We are launching an Apps Experience Program and revamping our Games Level-Up program to incentivize building great software experiences across Android form factors associated with clear quality benchmarks and enhanced user benefits. Those developers who choose to participate in these programs will have even lower rates. Participating IAP developers will have a 20% service fee for transactions from existing installs and a 15% fee on transactions from new app installs.
Our service fee for recurring subscriptions will be 10%.
Image: Google
Image: Google
And here’s the timeline that Google is sharing for fee changes to roll out:
By June 30: EEA, the United Kingdom and the US.
By September 30: Australia
By December 31: Korea and Japan
By September 30, 2027: The updates will reach the rest of the world.
We will also launch the updated Games Level-Up program and new App Experience program by September 30 for EEA, UK, US, and Australia and then it will roll out in line with the rest of the schedule above.
We plan to launch Registered App Stores with a version of a major Android release by the end of the year.
With Registered App Stores, another distinct program run by Google, the company is promising a relatively frictionless experience for sideloading those stores onto your Android device. It appears like this in court documents:
Image: US District Court
To be clear, “Registered App Stores” is not what a US court has ordered Google to create in the United States — Google must instead carry rival app stores inside of its own Google Play Store, and give them access to the full catalog of Android apps so they can meaningfully gain ground against Google’s prior monopoly.
“Enabling robust competition, can, we think, be accomplished by letting apps go through this Registered App Store program and be installed,” Google Android boss Sameer Samat tells The Verge. But he says that Google is still complying with Judge Donato’s original injunction until or unless he agrees to substitute Registered App Stores for store-within-a-store and catalog access.
You won’t get both Registered App Stores and store-within-a-store, Epic and Google say. Outside the US, you’ll be able to download Registered App Stores from the web; inside the US, Google will prepare to carry rival stores within its own store unless Judge Donato changes his mind. “We are suggesting to the court that registered app store program is a better approach to creating competition for app stores than distributing app stores in Google Play,” says Samat.
Epic, which quietly negotiated a secret $800 million deal with Google before the proposed settlement, is applauding all these changes. But while Epic and Google both say these changes settle the companies’ disputes worldwide — “We are also excited to announce that we’ve resolved all our disputes with Epic Games globally!” writes Android boss Sameer Samat — he admits that’s not yet true in the US.
“In other places around the world where we have a legal process… where a settlement can be done without needing approval from someone else, we are going to settle those disputes,” he tells me. “In all other places where there are no disputes, we just intend to move forward.”
In their new proposed settlement in the United States, a redlined version of which you can read below, Google and Epic are trying to partially walk back at least two of the court’s decisions. First, Google wants to be able to stop developers from linking to apps outside its own Google Play Store, something Samat claims is a security concern because it can’t police every link out to the web. “We’ve seen a lot of malware hit users in that way.”
“If a developer wants to link out to have a transaction concluded on their website, that’s all fine,” but he says that Google Play apps shouldn’t link directly to software outside the store because users expect Google’s own platform to be safe.
The second thing Google and Epic are trying to walk back is a prohibition on Google paying or otherwise incentivizing developers to put their apps exclusively on Android, “provided that the developer is free to choose any Android app store for distribution in the United States.”
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney claims that Google’s changes will lead to “the restoration of a healthy market, which is in complete contrast to what’s happening on iOS” where Apple is still blocking competing stores and/or charging a “Core Technology Fee” on outside purchases. He says the changes mean Google will no longer be reaching into developers’ businesses.
Developing… we’re adding more to this story right now.