Google Play Fees: 7 Essential Facts About What Google Takes From Your App

Google Play fees at a glance

These are the Google Play fees that apply in the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area since June 30, 2026, as announced on the Android Developers Blog.

Google has said that billing fee details for other markets will follow, so outside these regions check the current terms in your Play Console before you set prices. Rates for programmes such as Games Level Up and the Apps Experience programme are published separately.

How the new Google Play fees work

Until 2026, Google took one combined cut, typically 15% or 30% depending on your earnings and the type of product. The new model separates two things that used to be bundled. The service fee pays for distribution, the store and its services. The billing fee pays for processing the payment through Google Play's own checkout.

For most small and mid sized apps the practical effect is simple. Subscriptions became slightly cheaper than under the old 15% model only if you leave Google Play billing; with Google Play billing they cost about the same as before. One time purchases under $1M a year moved from 15% to 10% plus the billing fee. The bigger change is the choice the new structure gives you.

The split matters because it gives developers a choice. If you keep Google Play billing, you pay both. If you use alternative billing or send users to an external web checkout where that is allowed, you skip the billing fee but still pay the service fee, and you pay your own payment provider instead.

Here is what that means for a typical subscription bought through Google Play billing:

With alternative billing, the billing fee line disappears and your payment provider's fee takes its place. Whether that is cheaper depends on the provider's rate, your volume and the extra work of running checkout yourself. Taxes such as VAT are handled separately and are not included in this example.

Google Play fees compared with Apple

Most apps are on both stores, so the real question is the combined effect on your margin. The two stores now work quite differently.

Apple's rules for external purchase links and alternative payments differ from country to country and have changed several times recently. Our guide to in app purchase fees covers Apple in detail and is kept up to date; this article focuses on Google Play fees.

When Google Play fees apply, and when they do not

This is the part founders most often get wrong. Google Play fees apply to digital goods and services sold inside the app. They do not apply to everything an app sells.

Apps that sell real world services take payments through their own payment provider, such as Stripe, and pay that provider's fee instead. Many founders do not know this and assume every payment in an app goes through the store. Others assume the opposite, that they will pay no store fee at all, and leave it out of the business plan. In about 60% of our projects the payment model changed at least a little during the build for exactly these reasons.

The line between digital and real world is not always obvious. A fitness app selling video workouts is digital; the same app selling places in a studio class is a real world service. Decide which side each product sits on before the build, because it changes the payment flow, the backend and the store review. Marketplace payments are a topic of their own, covered in marketplace app payments.

Alternative billing in practice: what you take on

Skipping the 5% billing fee sounds like free money. In practice, running your own checkout means taking over the work that Google Play billing did for you, and that work has a cost of its own.

Payment processing. Your payment provider charges its own fee per transaction. For small amounts, fixed fees per payment can make it more expensive than the billing fee it replaces.

Subscriptions and renewals. Trials, upgrades, downgrades, failed payments and cancellations must be handled by your backend instead of the store. Users also expect to manage the subscription somewhere obvious.

Refunds and support. Requests that Google used to handle now reach your team.

Taxes. Collecting and reporting sales tax or VAT in each market becomes your responsibility or your provider's, depending on how you set it up.

For a small app with modest revenue, Google Play billing is often the simpler and cheaper choice even with the billing fee. For products with high volume, larger prices or a web version that already has its own checkout, alternative billing can make sense. Decide with real numbers, not with the headline percentage.

Google Play fees by type of app

Subscription content apps, such as fitness programmes, learning apps or premium tools, pay the subscription rate: 10% service fee plus 5% billing fee with Google Play billing. For them, Google Play fees are a predictable line in the plan, and the main lever is retention, not the fee.

Marketplaces and booking apps that sell real world services usually pay no Google Play fees at all on those services, because payments go through their own provider. Google Play fees only appear if they also sell something digital, such as a premium membership for providers.

Apps with one time digital purchases, such as unlocks or content packs, pay the 10% service fee on the first $1M of annual earnings, plus the billing fee if they use Google Play billing, and move to the rate card above that.

Many products are a mix. A fitness app can sell a digital programme and a place in a studio class in the same screen; the first pays Google Play fees, the second does not. Mapping each product to the right payment flow is part of the scope, not a detail for later.

Google Play fees outside the US, UK and EEA

Google introduced the separated service and billing fees first in the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area, and has said that details for other markets will follow. If most of your users are elsewhere, check the fees shown for each market in your Play Console before you fix prices, and plan for the structure to change when Google extends the new model.

For a product launching in several regions at once, the practical approach is the same everywhere: keep prices and offers in the backend so they can be adjusted per market, and review store fees at least once a year as part of pricing.

How to keep more of what your app earns

• Sell subscriptions where it fits. Auto renewing subscriptions pay the 10% service fee from day one, which is the lowest rate Google offers.
• Compare billing options with real numbers. Alternative billing skips the 5% billing fee, but you pay your provider and build the checkout. Run the numbers for your price and volume before switching.
• Keep real world services off store billing. If you sell bookings, deliveries or physical products, use your own payment provider; store billing is neither required nor appropriate.
• Price per platform if you need to. Many apps set slightly different prices on each store to reflect different fees; check each store's current pricing rules first.
• Make prices changeable without a release. If offers live in the backend, you can adjust them when fees change without shipping a new version of the app.

The last point comes from a real project. On Body Vibes, the paywall reads its prices and offers from the backend, so the owners can change them without a developer and without a new release. When store fees or prices change, that decision saves a release every time. How subscriptions are built is covered in subscription app development.

Putting Google Play fees into your business plan

The safest approach is to plan each revenue line with its real fee. For digital subscriptions sold through Google Play billing, plan around 15% in the US, UK and EEA. For one time digital purchases, plan around the same until you pass $1M in annual earnings, then check the rate card. For real world services, plan your payment provider's fee instead of a store fee.

Then do the same for Apple, because most of your users will be on iOS or Android, not one of them. The blended fee across both stores is the number that belongs in your margin calculation.

Finally, keep the plan flexible. Store fees have changed more in the last two years than in the previous ten, and they may change again. Products whose prices and payment options can be adjusted from the backend cope with that far better than products where pricing is built into the app. What a first version of an app with payments costs to build is covered in MVP app cost.

Mistakes founders make with Google Play fees

• Using the old 15% and 30% numbers. In the US, UK and EEA the structure changed on June 30, 2026. Old blog posts and calculators still show the previous model.
• Forgetting the billing fee. The 10% headline is the service fee only. With Google Play billing, add 5%.
• Putting real world services through store billing. Bookings and physical products belong with your own payment provider.
• Leaving store fees out of the plan. A product that only works at 0% store fees has a pricing problem, not a fee problem.
• Hard coding prices. Prices and offers built into the app need a new release for every change.

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