On March 4, 2026, Google settled its long-running antitrust case with Epic Games and agreed to structurally change how it charges Android developers. The headline is a fee cut: standard Play Store commissions are dropping from 30% to 20%, with subscriptions falling to 10%, and app developers are now allowed to offer and promote alternative payment methods directly inside their apps.
The changes go live June 30, 2026 in the US, EEA, and UK.
That's less than three months away. If you haven't started thinking about what this means for your pricing, now is a good time.
This guide covers what's actually changing, how to model the impact on your revenue, and the practical steps to update your Play Store listings and in-app pricing before the deadline.
what the new fee structure actually looks like#
The old model was simple: Google took 30% of everything, dropping to 15% for subscriptions after year one. The new structure introduced by the Epic settlement is more nuanced.
For in-app purchases and paid downloads, the standard rate falls to 20%. If your app sells items that don't materially advance gameplay — cosmetic skins, profile themes, digital stickers — the rate drops further to 9%. Items that do affect gameplay (in-game currency, power-ups, new characters) stay at 20%.
For recurring subscriptions, the rate is 10% across the board, regardless of subscription age. This is a significant improvement over the old tiered system.
For alternative billing, developers can now offer and promote payment methods outside Google Play Billing — including links to web checkout flows — without being penalized with removal. Google will charge a reduced fee for transactions processed through alternative billing systems, though the exact rate depends on the developer program you enroll in.
step 1: audit your current pricing and margin structure#
Before you change anything, you need to understand what the fee reduction actually means for your margins — and whether it creates room to move prices, increase revenue, or both.
Start by listing every SKU you sell on Google Play: one-time purchases, consumables, subscription tiers. For each SKU, calculate:
- Current effective margin = price × (1 - 0.30) minus your COGS
- New effective margin = price × (1 - 0.20) minus your COGS
The 10-percentage-point reduction sounds large but its actual dollar impact depends entirely on your price points. A $0.99 purchase goes from $0.69 net to $0.79 net — meaningful for high-volume apps, negligible for low-volume premium ones. A $9.99/month subscription goes from $7.00 net to $9.00 net under the new subscription rate. That's a 28% improvement in effective revenue per subscriber.
If you have subscription products, this change is potentially significant. Run the numbers.
step 2: decide whether to reprice, pocket the margin, or both#
You now have three basic options:
Option A: Keep prices the same and pocket the margin improvement. This is the default if you do nothing. Revenue per transaction increases automatically. No user communication required, no app update needed. This makes sense if your pricing is already at the market-appropriate level and you don't want churn risk from a visible price change.
Option B: Lower prices to be more competitive. If you've been pricing with a 30% cut in mind, you may have room to lower your prices by roughly 10-15% while maintaining the same or better net revenue. For subscription apps in crowded categories, this could improve conversion rates and reduce churn — a lower monthly price changes the psychological calculus for subscribers who are on the fence.
Option C: Introduce alternative billing and capture the web checkout advantage. This is the most work but potentially the highest upside. Google's settlement allows you to link out to a web checkout flow with a "buy on web" option. Web transactions typically carry payment processor fees of 2-3%, not 20%, so the economics can be dramatically better — especially for high-ticket or enterprise purchases. The trade-off is implementation complexity and user experience friction.
step 3: update your Play Console pricing#
If you decide to change prices, the process in Play Console is straightforward but requires lead time.
Go to Monetize → Products → Subscriptions (or In-app products for one-time purchases). Select the SKU you want to update and edit the base price. Google will automatically calculate local prices for other markets based on your base price and current exchange rates, though you can override these manually.
For subscriptions, be aware that Google requires you to notify existing subscribers of price increases and gives them the option to cancel before the new price takes effect. This notification is handled automatically by Play Console and goes out via email and an in-app message, but the delay means price changes don't take effect immediately. Plan accordingly.
Do not wait until June 29. If you want new pricing in place when fees change, initiate the update at least 2-3 weeks in advance to account for notification periods and any review delays.
step 4: update your store listings if you're changing the value proposition#
If you're lowering prices, your store listing probably needs to be updated too. Screenshots and descriptions that emphasize pricing ("only $X/month") should be refreshed. If you're launching a new lower tier, you may want to update your feature comparison table or paywall screenshot.
This is often the step that gets skipped, and it shows. A listing that still implies your old price after you've changed it creates confusion at the point where a potential user is making a decision.
For subscription apps, it's also worth updating your App Preview video if it shows a paywall screen with old pricing. Review guidelines don't require this, but it's a conversion problem if the price a user sees in your screenshots doesn't match what they see when they open the app.
step 5: consider alternative billing if you have high-value purchases#
Google's new policy allows developers to "promote" alternative billing options inside the app — including adding a "purchase on website" button or banner. For apps with in-app purchases above $20-30, the economics of routing customers to a web checkout are compelling.
The setup requires:
- A web checkout flow (Stripe, Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, or similar)
- Entitlement syncing between your web payment system and the app
- Clear UI that presents both options without being deceptive
The implementation is not trivial, especially the entitlement sync. But for B2B apps, professional tools, or any app with high-ticket purchases, the potential to bring effective fees from 20% down to 3-4% is hard to ignore.
what this means for cross-platform developers#
If you ship on both iOS and Android, the competitive dynamics between the two platforms just shifted. Apple's App Store still charges 30% (or 15% for the Small Business Program), with subscriptions at 15% after year one. Google Play's new rates are materially lower across the board.
This doesn't mean you should have different prices on each platform — that creates user confusion and may trigger questions during App Store review. But it does change the net economics and gives you more flexibility on Android if you want to experiment with promotional pricing.
keeping your listings current without doing it manually#
If you're managing multiple apps across both stores, coordinating a pricing update, listing refresh, and screenshot update across all of them at the same time is operationally annoying. Each store has its own tooling, its own review timelines, and its own quirks around metadata changes.
Stora's one-click publish syncs your store listing metadata — including screenshots, descriptions, and pricing context — across both App Store and Play Store from a single interface. When you're making a coordinated change like a pricing update, being able to push listing updates to both stores simultaneously, with a single review of what's going out, reduces both the effort and the error rate.
The fee changes are coming whether you act or not. The developers who will benefit most are the ones who model their margins now, make a deliberate decision before June 30, and have their listings updated before the change takes effect — not after.
quick action checklist#
- Today: Pull your current SKU list and calculate effective margin under old vs. new fees
- This week: Decide: pocket the margin, lower prices, or pursue alternative billing
- By June 1: Submit any price changes so subscriber notification windows clear in time
- By June 15: Update screenshots and store listing copy if your pricing visuals are changing
- By June 30: Confirm new fees are live in your Play Console financial reports
The settlement is a meaningful reset for Android monetization. Use it.