Apple has announced the biggest upgrade to the App Store pricing system as the legal and regulatory pressure over Apple’s tight control of the App Store’s pricing intensifies. Under the new system, the U.S. developers are allowed to set prices for apps, in-app purchases, or subscriptions as low as $0.29 or as high as $10,000 and in rounded endings (like $1.00) instead of just $0.99. Apple is also expanding access to 700 additional price points, bringing the new total number of price points available to 900.
App Store Pricing System to Provide Ease to the Devs
The new app store pricing system will make it easier for the developers to deal with global exchange rates as they can now set their price for the specific country’s storefront and see global pricing change automatically based on exchange and tax rates; this allows developers to respond to inflation and shifts in exchange rates. Previously, the developers had to do this manually, which was a time-taking process.
Last year, Apple agreed to expand the pricing options at the App Store as part of a $100 million settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit filed by US developers who were not happy with paying commissions of up to 30% on transactions. Apple says, “The settlement was the latest chapter of Apple’s longstanding efforts to evolve the App Store into an even better marketplace for users and developers alike.”
At the Behest of Future
The changes have also been made to help Apple and the developers in its ecosystem who are recently affected by the volatile economic conditions, with higher-than-usual inflation and exchange rate fluctuations. It can also be said that Apple has announced the new prices system to prepare for the upcoming content, tools, and experiences that may be sold for its future mixed reality headset, which will likely launch in 2023.
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