Rumor: Google wants to give developers 85 percent of subscriber revenue

Google plans to give developers 85 percent of the revenue from subscriptions that come with an in-app purchase through the Play Store. That percentage is now at 70. Google is thus following Apple, which announced such a plan on Wednesday.

At Google, developers would receive 85 percent of the proceeds from the start of the subscription, Recode reports, based on anonymous sources who spoke to the tech site within hours of Apple’s announcement. At Apple, that is only after a year, it turned out with the announcement Wednesday evening.

Google would like to do that to encourage developers to offer subscriptions in their app. That often doesn’t happen now. The search giant has already tested the new revenue distribution with “some entertainment companies,” Recode says. It is unknown when the new distribution will be available to all developers.

Apple announced the new 85-15 distribution on Wednesday evening, but in the meantime there has been uncertainty about what exactly developers are allowed to offer subscriptions for. In this regard, Apple only mentions content, such as new articles, and services, such as online backup functionality, in the documentation. Whether, for example, a business application for which many updates are released, may offer a subscription is unclear, says Apple follower John Grueber.