Microsoft says it will give app developers an 85%-95% cut for all non-game apps, up from current 70%; new fee structure will go into effect later this year
Planned dev deal tweak lets programmers keep 95 per cent of revenue — Build Microsoft says it will take less money …
Context & Ripple Effects
At Build, Microsoft is cutting its Windows Store take for non-game apps from 30% to as little as 5-15% — the most aggressive developer split any major platform had offered at the time. The rollout proved slow: a year after the announcement the new pricing still hadn't shipped (the promised 85%-95% split remained unimplemented), only going live in early 2019 with games held at the old 70/30 terms (when the policy finally took effect).
The move matters because it reframed store fees as a competitive variable rather than a fixed industry norm — a template Microsoft extended two years later when it slashed its PC game cut to 12% to go after Steam (the 12% PC game split), and one Google echoed by halving its Play Store rate on small developers' first $1M (Google's 15% tier).
First-order effects
- Non-game app developers publishing through the Microsoft Store keep 85-95% of revenue instead of 70%, directly raising margins for anyone selling apps or subscriptions on Windows.
- Microsoft accepts lower per-app revenue on its own store, betting the richer split attracts catalog and developers that Windows' smaller app base currently lacks.
Second-order effects
- Apple and Google face pressure to justify their 70/30 defaults; Google's subsequent move to 15% on the first $1M per developer shows the undercut spreading across mobile stores.
- Games stay at 70/30 for now, but Microsoft later extends the discounting logic there too — cutting PC game fees to 12% explicitly to compete with Steam, per its own filings.
Third-order effects
- Store take rates are becoming a priced, negotiable feature of platforms rather than an industry constant — a shift regulators and antitrust cases (Epic vs Apple surfaced Microsoft's internal plans) now treat as evidence the old 30% was not sacrosanct.
- If fee competition holds, platform economics tilt toward volume-and-services models where the storefront monetizes subscriptions, cloud, and search placement rather than the transaction itself.
The trend: App store economics are moving from a uniform 30% toll toward tiered, competitively set take rates, with Microsoft repeatedly setting the low anchor and rivals following under commercial and regulatory pressure.