Google is following Apple’s lead by adding new fees for developers in the EU

Yesterday, Google outlined the changes it will make to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which comes into effect today. One important detail it left out, however, was whether it would charge developers who direct users outside of the Play Store to sideload apps — and if so, how much.

Now Google has revealed that it will indeed charge developers even if they don’t use the Play Store, just like Apple did with the App Store. According to new details discovered in Play Console Help Sectionthe company will charge two new fees:

1. Initial acquisition fee of 10% for in-app purchases or 5% for two-year subscriptions. This represents the value provided by Play to facilitate initial user acquisition.

2. Ongoing service fee of 17% for in-app purchases or 7% for subscriptions. This covers current Play services such as parental controls, security, fraud prevention and app updates.

Developers can waive ongoing fees after two years if users agree, but current Play services will no longer apply. “Since users acquired the app through Play with the expectation of services such as parental controls, security scanning, fraud prevention, and continuous app updates, termination of services also requires user consent,” Google said.

Google included the following chart to show how fees would apply for a hypothetical “Fanstiq app”:

With this, Google is taking a similar approach to Apple, which has reduced App Store commissions but introduced new fees. Namely, Apple tacked on a new 3 percent “payment processing” fee for transactions that go through its store. And a new “core technology fee” will charge a flat fee of €0.50 for all app downloads, whether they come from the App Store or a third-party website, after the first 1 million installs.

Google justifies the fees by touting the value it provides in the Android ecosystem: “Play fees support our investment in Android and Google Play and reflect value provided by Android and Playincluding enabling us to distribute Android for free and provide the ever-growing set of tools and services that help developers build successful businesses while keeping our platforms safe and secure for billions of users around the world.”

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney already criticized Google’s DMA compliance announcement yesterday before the new fees were even published. “Google has announced its malicious plans to comply with the European DMA law… it looks like their illegal anti-management policy will be replaced by a new Google tax on web transactions. We’ll likely learn soon how he and other developers react to new fees.