Google isn’t waiting for a settlement — the 30 percent Android app store fee is dead

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 — and we spoke to the heads of Android and Epic Games about the changes.

By June 30th, Google writes, it will lower most 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,” at least for in-app purchases, 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 that Google submitted with the court, which includes quite an array of fees:

Note that Google still keeps 25 percent when you pay for content inside an app you’ve already purchased, it’s following through on a plan to charge $2-4 or 20 percent if you follow a link to download or buy your content elsewhere, and that the best deals involve signing up for a new Games Level Up or Apps Experience program; more about those here.

Here’s how Google says it’ll work if you have the best deals:

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.

Note that while Google is mostly separating “service” fees from “billing” fees to give developers those promised discounts, it’s talking about in-app purchases. It won’t be the same if you buy a $5 app or game outright: “The fee for that will be 20 percent, but Google Play Billing for that is required, because it’s inside Google Play where that purchasing is happening,” Google Android boss Sameer Samat tells us.

With Registered App Stores, another distinct program run by Google, the company is promising to not charge developers fees at all. “They don’t pay any ongoing fees related to any of the transactions happening in the apps,” says Samat. And installing them onto your Android device should be a relatively frictionless experience. That flow appears like this in court documents:

Samat tells The Verge that his company will indeed be the one determining whether any given app store can qualify for the Registered App Store program; there is no independent auditor.

But a term sheet filed with the court does tentatively say that Android will offer an appeal process if your app store is rejected, that Google Play will be subject to the same requirements as rival stores, and that “Google will not use the above Trust & Safety requirements as a pretext to discriminate against any app store provider.”

Those specific requirements include that Registered App Stores need to be open to all eligible third-party developers, respect intellectual property rights, prevent the distribution of malware, offer parental controls, “adhere to Android’s technical requirements,” and more:

Importantly, Google and Epic tell us that Registered App Stores will not have to pay per-app fees to Google, only a small one-time fee “in the order of hundreds of dollars” so Google can review and register those app stores to begin with. It won’t have oversight over a registered store. “We’ll do a malware scan of the apps, but we will not review the apps for content.”

And if app store developers opt out, they’re still free to let users sideload their stores with the same friction as before. “Once a store is part of a Registered App Store program, installation flow for that store becomes more streamlined,” says Samat.

According to the term sheet, Google will add Registered App Stores outside the US no later than the second major quarterly release of Android 17, later this year.

Outside the US, Google plans to make other changes too, including mandating APIs so it can get its cut when you click out to an app developer’s website and pay for purchases there within 24 hours, something it’s already announced for the US. You’ll probably find more surprises if you read through the documents we’ve embedded in this story.

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 and undo its monopoly.

“Enabling robust competition, can, we think, be accomplished by letting apps go through this Registered App Store program and be installed,” 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. The new proposed injunction suggests Judge Donato do that, in exchange for Google to keep offering both Registered App Stores and normal sideloaded app stores through September 30th, 2032.

You won’t get both Registered App Stores and store-within-a-store, Epic and Google tell us. 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 the 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 other antitrust remedies. 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.

_{Above: a redlined version of Google and Epic’s proposed changes to the injunction.}

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 or erecting the kind of unreasonable friction that saw Epic lose 65 percent of users who tried to install its store from the web but gave up along the way.

Samat says that “with AI and what’s happening with gaming and the Metaverse and everything,” it is now “important to build instead of quarreling.”

“This is not just about doing what’s required,” he adds. “We are proactively evolving because we believe a modern platform must be based on choice and user safety.”

Sweeney says: “We’ve always been fighting for open platforms here, and we have one now.” But he would say things like that now, I suppose. He signed a binding legal agreement that keeps him from speaking out against Google.

You can read Google and Epic’s full court filings for yourself (minus some redactions) below.

Update, March 4th: Added a full list of Google’s planned fees that it submitted to the court, which reveals that Google plans to charge when users follow links from Google’s app store to outside purchases and downloads; that it will still charge a 25 percent service fee, not 20 percent, in some scenarios; and that Tim Sweeney has signed away his ability to criticize Google’s app store practices.