Gross vs proceeds: what Apple and Google keep before you get paid
From the price on the store page to the money in your bank: tax, the 15 or 30% commission, Google's 2026 fee changes, payout timing, and Stripe for comparison.
By Torstein · · 4 min read
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The price on your App Store page is not what you earn. Between the customer tapping Buy and money landing in your account, tax comes off, the store's commission comes off, the amount is converted to your currency, and you wait a month or more. This post follows one sale through each step.
Proceeds, defined#
Apple calls what you receive proceeds: the customer price, minus applicable taxes, minus Apple's commission (Apple, units and proceeds). The customer price you see in reports is "inclusive of any applicable taxes we collect and remit" (Apple, financial report fields). So "sales" in App Store Connect is closer to gross; proceeds is what is yours.
One sale, step by step#
Here is a single purchase of a 2.99 app in a country with 25% VAT, where the store collects the VAT. These are illustrative figures, not a real app's results. Exact proceeds for every price point and country are listed in App Store Connect under your app's pricing.
- Price the customer pays
- 2.99 EUR
- − VAT included in the price (25%)2.99 / 1.25 = 2.39 before VAT
- 0.60 EUR
- − Commission (15% of 2.39)assumes the commission is taken from the price after VAT
- 0.36 EUR
- = Your proceeds
- 2.03 EUR
Roughly a third of the sticker price is gone before currency conversion. At a 30% commission, the same sale leaves about 1.67.
Apple's commission: 15% or 30%#
- App Store Small Business Program: 15% on paid apps and in-app purchases if you made up to 1 million USD in proceeds in the prior calendar year, or are new to the App Store. You have to enroll. Pass 1 million in the current year and the standard rate applies to future sales (Apple, Small Business Program).
- Subscriptions: 70% to you in a subscriber's first year of paid service, 85% after that (Apple, subscriptions).
Apple has also changed terms in some regions, for example the EU and China, so check the current terms for where you sell (Apple Developer news).
Google's service fee, and the 2026 changes#
Google's standard structure is 15% on the first 1 million USD you earn each year, 30% above that, and 15% on auto-renewing subscriptions regardless of how much you earn (Google Play Help, service fees).
In 2026 Google added a different structure for the EEA, the UK and the US (from 30 June 2026) and for Australia and Japan (from 30 September 2026). There, the fee depends on whether the install is new or existing, and a separate billing fee is added on top. The details vary by transaction type and program, so read Google's current table before you model your margins (Google Play Help, service fees).
Who handles the tax#
On both stores, the store sells to the customer and deals with consumption tax in many countries. Google says it is responsible for determining, charging and remitting VAT for digital content in many jurisdictions, though developers in some countries keep their own tax obligations (Google Play Help, tax). Apple's proceeds already have the taxes Apple collects taken out.
That is VAT and sales tax. Income tax on your proceeds is still yours. More on that in how much to set aside for tax.
When the money arrives#
| Final report | Payout | |
|---|---|---|
| Apple | Financial reports, by the first Friday of the next fiscal month | Within 45 days of the end of the fiscal month |
| Google Play | Earnings report, usually by the 5th of the next month | Around the 15th of the next month |
Apple pays "within 45 days of the last day of the fiscal month in which the transaction was completed" (Apple, receiving payments). Google pays out a month's orders "around the 15th of the following month" (Google Play Help, payouts), and its earnings report "is typically available by the fifth of the following month" (Google Play Help, earnings report).
Until those final reports exist, every proceeds number you see for the current month, in any tool, is an estimate.
Stripe, for comparison#
With Stripe you are the seller. Stripe takes a processing fee per payment, and tax is your job: Stripe Tax can calculate and collect it, but you still have to file and remit it in every place you are registered (Stripe docs, how Stripe Tax works). A merchant of record like Paddle or Lemon Squeezy, or Stripe's own Managed Payments, takes a bigger cut and handles the tax for you (Stripe docs, Managed Payments).
So "net" for a Stripe product is the charge minus Stripe's fees, refunds and disputes, and you still owe the tax out of it. "Net" for a store product already has the store's tax removed.
Why proceeds should be your headline number#
Gross makes a portfolio look bigger than it is, and it mixes numbers that do not mean the same thing: a Stripe charge excludes tax, a store's customer price includes it. Proceeds is the number you can pay rent with. Plask shows net revenue as the main number for every source, with gross next to it where the source provides it, and labels Google Play months as estimated until the earnings report arrives. The details are on the methodology page.