Netflix announces in-app subscriptions for iPhone and iPad, offers same monthly rate as on the web
Netflix adds in-app subscriptions for iPhone and iPad — Now you won't even need to get off the sofa to find your laptop before you start binge-watching Netflix.
Context & Ripple Effects
In September 2015 Netflix began selling subscriptions directly inside its iPhone and iPad apps at the same monthly rate as the web, removing the last friction step between opening the app and paying — months after HBO Now launched at $14.99 per month across Apple TV, iPhone, and iPad set the benchmark for Apple-device distribution of premium streaming.
The move paid off quickly: by December 2016 Netflix had become the top-grossing iOS app in the US with weekly net revenue near $2.9M, per Sensor Tower. But the same App Store channel later became a cost to escape — in late 2018 Netflix stopped letting new or returning subscribers pay through in-app purchase, and by mid-2022 it was routing iOS users to its site via an external-signup button built on Apple's reader-apps API.
First-order effects
- New and returning Netflix subscribers on iPhone and iPad can sign up and pay without leaving the app, at parity pricing with the web — meaning Netflix absorbs the App Store's commission rather than passing it on as an iOS surcharge.
- Apple gains Netflix as a top billing line inside its ecosystem's payment flow, deepening the store relationship that would later make Netflix one of the highest-revenue iOS apps.
Second-order effects
- Rival premium services face pressure to match one-tap signup on Apple devices, as HBO Now already had with its $14.99 Apple-platform launch — device-native checkout becomes table stakes for subscription video.
- Once in-app revenue scales, the App Store commission becomes a visible line item, pushing Netflix toward the web-first signup flows it adopted in 2018 and 2022 to avoid the cut.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, big-subscription apps treat App Store billing as a temporary acquisition tool rather than permanent infrastructure, normalizing external-linkage workarounds like the reader-apps API route Netflix took in 2022 — and forcing platform owners to defend their commission model against their biggest tenants.
The trend: Streaming services are migrating from native in-app billing toward web-based signup to escape app-store commissions, with 2015's convenience-driven adoption setting up the eventual reversal.