Apple Can Charge ‘Reasonable’ App Store Fees, Court Rules
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A US appellate court ruled on Thursday that Apple should be allowed to collect a commission on in-app purchases made via external links in iOS apps, reports Reuters. The ruling partially reverses the sanctions imposed on Apple after the iPhone maker lost a legal battle with Epic Games that found the company had willfully violated an injunction.
The ruling this past April required Apple to allow developers to include in-app external links to purchase options outside the App Store without making it more complicated than necessary. This allows games like Fortnite and apps like Spotify to advertise deals in apps, directing users to their websites to complete a purchase.
While Apple was initially ordered to open this door in 2021, it won a stay of that injunction, pending the outcome of an appeal. Lower courts upheld the injunction, and the clock ran out in January 2024 when the Supreme Court declined to hear Apple’s final appeal, bringing it back into full force. At that point, Apple had no choice but to comply; however, it took full advantage of an exception in the 2021 ruling, announced it would charge a 27% commission on all purchases made outside the App Store.
That wasn’t what most people would consider a reasonable fee for purchases made through external links. Apple dropped its share of the action by a whopping three percentage points, from 30% to 27%. That 3% was Apple’s cost of handling payment processing, while the rest was for the privilege of being on Apple’s platform. Few developers took advantage of the in-app link program because, once their own processing fees were added, using Apple’s link program was more expensive than opting for in-app purchases.
Unsurprisingly, Epic Games took this back to court, declaring it “malicious compliance,” and pointing out that not only was Apple still charging what it maintained were excessive commissions, but also making it more complicated for developers to use external purchasing methods through complicated reporting requirements and “scare screens” that discouraged users.
In April 2025, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who handed down the 2021 injunction in the original Epic Games case against Apple, barred the company from charging any commission on purchases made via the in-app links, ruling that Apple defied the court’s original injunction and “at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option.”
However, at least some of this is about to change. Apple immediately challenged Judge Rogers’ new injunction, claiming she exceeded her authority by effectively setting prices and forcing Apple to “give away free access to its products and services.” The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Apple’s arguments, ruling that the company can charge fees to cover its necessary costs and intellectual property expenses — within reason.
Apple will not be allowed to begin charging a commission immediately. The case will now be sent back to the district court, where a reasonable fee will be determined based on the necessary costs for its external links coordination program, as well as “some compensation” for the use of its intellectual property. The appeals court also encouraged the parties to work this out “expeditiously.”
While the ruling appears to be a victory for Apple, Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Fortnite developer Epic Games, also celebrated it, saying it bars Apple from forcing developers to pay “giant junk fees” and will benefit developers and consumers.
“After years of Apple obstruction, we’re finally going to see large-scale change happening,” he said.
The higher court determined that the Apple order was written more like a punitive contempt sanction than a civil contempt sanction or a modification of the injunction, as it permanently barred Apple from receiving compensation for linked-out purchases of digital products.
Rather than coercing Apple to comply with the spirit of the injunction with a reasonable, non-prohibitive commission, the district court used blunt force to ban all commissions, abusing its discretion.
In addition to being allowed to charge a “reasonable commission,” the appellate court also found other parts of the initial ruling to be far too broad, so further changes will be made.
Apple will now be allowed to restrict developers from making external links more prominent than in-app buying options. Developers could be restricted from using more prominent fonts, larger sizes, larger quantities, and from placing links in more prominent locations than their in-app purchase counterparts. Developers will be allowed to place buttons using the same fonts and sizes, alongside Apple’s own in-app links.
Apple may also stop developers from using any language that violates the company’s general content standard, if those standards do exist.
Other than the changes to fees and link design, the rest of the April injunction will stay in place, as Apple made external links “as hard to use as possible,” which “flies in the face of the injunction’s spirit.”
