by Dan Moren
Apple affiliate rate dropped only for iOS in-app purchases
Good news: that story from a couple weeks ago about Apple cutting its affiliate rates (the small commission it pays out to some sites, like ours, that refer apps) wasn’t the whole story. Apple’s Affiliate Program website confirms that the reduction from 7 percent to 2.5 percent applies only to in-app purchases on iOS. Everything else stays at the 7 percent level.
Whether that was always the plan and it was simply miscommunicated or there was backtracking after the outcry is unclear, but the end result means that websites that generate revenue by driving a lot of traffic to the App Store won’t see nearly as much of a dip. I imagine that referrals for in-app purchases are far less for websites, since they’re usually done, you know, in the app.