Apple just announced the company's biggest upgrade to App Store pricing, as they add 700 new price points starting from $0.29. Through this, developers will have more options to manage their own pricings globally.
This illustration photo shows the Apple app store logo reflected from an iPhone onto the back of an iMac in Los Angeles, August 26, 2021. - Apple has agreed to loosen payment restrictions on its App Store, a major change announced in a settlement with small developers as the US technology giant faces growing scrutiny and legal challenges over its tightly controlled online marketplace. The change will allow small developers to inform their customers of alternative payment options beyond the official App Store.
by CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images
(Photo : CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images) This illustration photo shows the Apple app store logo reflected from an iPhone onto the back of an iMac in Los Angeles, August 26, 2021. - Apple has agreed to loosen payment restrictions on its App Store, a major change announced in a settlement with small developers as the US technology giant faces growing scrutiny and legal challenges over its tightly controlled online marketplace.
700 New Price Points
Apple expanded more options for developers on pricing their applications in App Store, as the company provided and additional 700 price points and new pricing tools. According to Apple Newsroom, these upgrades will make it easier for developers to set prices per region or country.
In total, 900 price points can now be opted by the developers, starting from $0.29 and can go high as $10,000 upon request. Adding to this, app prices can now also go up incrementally to different ranges. Different pricing conventions for all 175 regional storefronts will also be included in the upgrade. This allows developers to use two repeating digits and rounded dollars.
"The App Store's commerce and payments system offers developers an ever-expanding set of capabilities and tools to grow their businesses, from frictionless checkout and transparent invoicing for users to robust marketing tools, tax and fraud services, and refund management," Apple stated.
Engadget reported that managing currency and taxes across storefronts will now be more convenient in this new upgrade. This will be possible by choosing a local storefront as your basis for automatically generating prices across 174 storefronts and 44 currencies. Before this, developers had to set this up manually.
Developers will also have the ability to set local territory pricing for paid apps and in-app purchases. The new upgrade will not be impacted by the automatic price adjustments.
While all of the upgrades for pricing structure are available today for applications offering auto-renewable subscriptions, the pricing capability by storefronts and in-app purchases will start to roll out in other applications in Spring 2023.
Some executives have spoken out against the policies of Apple's App Store, which has been talked about by several critics. During the New York Times' DealBookSummit, Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg stated that Apple is the only company that limits an application within its jurisdiction. He described the policies of the Cupertino giant as not sustainable.
Four years ago, we filed a complaint detailing @Apple’s anticompetitive practices. Some context. https://t.co/IljYEaCydc
Meanwhile, Spotify Chief Executive Officer Daniel Elk posted a thread on Twitter and said that Apple is engaging in anticompetitive practices, to which they filed a complaint four years ago. He added, "Over and over again Apple gives itself every advantage while at the same time stifling innovation and hurting consumers."
