Been dealing with Apple’s 30% cut for years now and it still stings every time I see those revenue reports.
Especially when you’re bootstrapping and every dollar matters. The small business program helps a bit but once you hit that 1M threshold you’re back to the full rate.
How do you all mentally deal with this?
It is what it is. Build for web first anyway.
I price my apps knowing that 30% disappears right away. Makes it easier to stomach when you build campaigns around the real revenue you keep.
The part that bugs me most is how it affects smaller apps differently. When you’re doing $50K a year that cut really limits growth compared to the big players who can absorb it easier.
Focus on the value Apple provides instead of just the cost. Their payment processing, fraud protection, and global distribution would cost you way more to build yourself. Plus you get access to their massive user base that trusts the platform. Try selling directly and see how much you spend on customer acquisition and payment security. The 30% hurts but the alternative is usually worse unit economics when you factor in everything else.
We just factor it into ad spend planning. Target higher LTV to offset the cut.
Yeah it’s brutal but I’ve stopped fighting it mentally. Just bake it into your unit economics from day one.
I run campaigns where the effective CPA needs to account for that 30% hit. So if I need $10 LTV to make money, I’m really working with $7 after Apple takes their cut.
The shift happened when I started treating it like any other cost - server fees, payment processing, whatever. Still sucks but at least the math works out clean when you plan for it upfront.