Tech titan Google on Tuesday announced it will slash the service fee that Google Play receives to 15 per cent for the first USD 1 million of revenue earned by a developer each year. Announcing the “significant change” for those developers that sell in-app digital goods and services on Google Play (say, gems in a game), Google said that service fee reduction will be effective from July 1, 2021. With this change, 99 per cent of developers globally that sell digital goods and services with Play will see a 50 per cent reduction in fees, Google said in a blogpost.
“Starting on 1st July, 2021 we are reducing the service fee Google Play receives to 15 per cent for the first USD 1 million of revenue every developer earns each year,” it said. These are funds that can help developers ramp up at a critical phase of their growth by hiring more engineers, adding to their marketing staff, and increasing server capacity. “Last year when we clarified the requirements of Google Play’s Payments policy, we explained that the service fee for Google Play is only applicable to developers who offer in-app sale of digital goods and services. More than 97 per cent of apps globally do not sell digital goods, and therefore do not pay any service fee,” it noted.
Google further said that for the developers in India who sell digital goods but have not yet integrated with Play’s billing system, they continue to have time until March 31, 2022, as stated previously. “For the thousands of developers in India that are already using Play to sell digital goods, they can start receiving the benefit of this change as soon as it goes into effect in July,” the blogpost said.
