Explaining how the App Store Small Business Program sets its 15% rate
A developer earning exactly 1 million USD in proceeds keeps 850,000 USD under Apple's Small Business Program. Cross that line by even a dollar, though, and future sales get taxed at double the rate, with no way back to 15% for at least a year, even if revenue drops the very next quarter. So how does Apple decide who actually qualifies, and what happens to developers who moved their app off a shared publishing platform assuming the discount would follow them?
The threshold itself is simple enough: developers who earned up to 1 million USD in proceeds in the prior calendar year qualify, and developers brand new to the App Store with no revenue history qualify automatically too. Once enrolled, every transaction across a qualifying account's apps gets billed at 15% instead of 30%. That covers one-time paid app purchases and In-App Purchases alike, including subscriptions.
Account structure matters here. Apple evaluates proceeds at the level of an Apple Developer Program account, and if a developer controls multiple accounts, those get treated as Associated Developer Accounts, with their proceeds combined for the 1 million USD calculation. You can't split apps across separate accounts to dodge the cap. There's also a special case for subscriptions sold under alternative terms in the EU: Apple may apply a further reduced commission rate after a subscription's first year for developers already in the Small Business Program, generally layering an extra discount on top of the base 15% rate, though the exact terms depend on Apple's current published policy.
Enrollment requires three concrete steps. You need the Account Holder role in the Apple Developer Program, since only Account Holders can accept commission-related agreements. You accept the latest Paid Apps agreement. And you disclose any Associated Developer Accounts during signup. The actual application happens on Apple's Small Business Program page, where an Enroll now button under the Get Started Today section kicks things off. The rate isn't permanent or fully automatic, either: Apple re-evaluates it every year based on actual proceeds. That annual re-evaluation is exactly where the practical decisions start, since qualifying once doesn't mean qualifying forever.
Deciding whether your app stays in or falls out of the 15% tier
The 1 million USD threshold isn't a one-time gate. Apple checks it annually, and that creates a specific decision point for growing apps. If a participating developer's proceeds cross 1 million USD in a given year, the standard 30% commission applies to the remainder of that year's sales once the threshold is exceeded, not retroactively to sales already made. If proceeds later drop back below 1 million USD in a subsequent calendar year, the developer can re-qualify for the 15% rate the year after that drop. That one-year lag means a bad year doesn't fix your commission rate immediately, so your revenue forecasting needs to account for a delay before the lower rate returns.
There's a specific exclusion that catches developers who use platform-managed publishing services. Apps previously published under a third-party Developer Account, such as the shared account model some app-building platforms like Passion.io use, and later transferred to an individual developer account, are not eligible for the Small Business Program. This matters for anyone using a no-code or white-label app platform to launch a branded app: moving that app to your own Apple Developer account later does not automatically unlock the 15% rate. Apple's eligibility rule looks at account history, not just current ownership, so it's worth confirming before choosing a publishing path.
That same account history rule has a follow-on effect for anyone tracking revenue through third-party analytics tools. Platforms like Apphud that calculate net revenue and integration events need to know a developer's Small Business Program status directly, because the 15% versus 30% split changes the proceeds figures those tools report. Apphud specifically calls out that developers must update their iOS app settings to reflect Small Business Program membership. Skip that step and your revenue analytics get calculated using the wrong commission assumption, throwing off your proceeds numbers.
Put together, three groups of developers should check their status now: anyone approaching 1 million USD in annual proceeds who needs to plan for the rate reverting to 30%, anyone who dropped below the threshold and is waiting out the one-year requalification window, and anyone using a managed publishing platform who plans to transfer an app to their own account and assumed the lower rate would carry over. Apple's dashboard doesn't handle any of these situations automatically, so check the Paid Apps agreement status and Associated Developer Account list before year-end revenue reporting. It'll save you from a surprise commission jump.
Weighing the commission gap against your app's growth trajectory
Those three checkpoints matter because the commission gap behind them isn't a rounding error. It's a direct doubling of what Apple keeps from every dollar of proceeds, which makes program status a real line item in any indie developer's or small studio's financial planning. On 1 million USD in proceeds, the gap between the two rates comes to 150,000 USD, money that either stays with Apple or stays with the developer depending on enrollment status alone. That's the practical reason enrollment checks belong in a regular financial review, not a one-time setup task.
The annual re-evaluation cycle also means the Small Business Program rewards developers who monitor proceeds continuously rather than checking once a year. Because crossing 1 million USD triggers a rate change on future sales starting the following period, a developer who tracks monthly proceeds can see the switch to 30% coming and adjust pricing or reserve funds ahead of time, instead of getting blindsided by a lower net revenue figure mid-quarter. Conversely, a developer whose proceeds fall can plan around the one-year lag before requalifying for 15%, rather than assuming the lower rate resumes immediately.
For developers using app-building platforms or managed publishing services, the exclusion on transferred accounts is the single fact most likely to change a launch decision. If long-term App Store commission cost is a priority, publish directly under your own Apple Developer Program account from day one. That avoids the disqualification that comes with later transferring an app out of a shared or platform-managed account. This single structural choice, made before an app's first submission, determines whether a 15% rate is even reachable down the line, regardless of how much revenue the app eventually earns. It's the answer to the exact trap described at the start: the discount doesn't follow the app. It follows the account it was born under.