Apple says apps and in-app purchases for macOS and iOS will be removed from its affiliate program on October 1; music, movies, books, and TV will remain
Apple announced in an email to publishers this evening that it is making changes to its iTunes Affiliate Program.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the endpoint of a two-step squeeze. In April 2017 Apple announced it was cutting affiliate commissions on apps and in-app purchases from 7% to 2.5%, then weeks later narrowed that cut to iOS in-app purchases only, sparing paid apps and other content. Removing apps and in-app purchases from the program outright on October 1 completes the retreat: where Apple once paid publishers to drive app installs, it now pays nothing.
The carve-out matters as much as the removal. Music, movies, books, and TV stay eligible — categories where Apple competes for attention against Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon and still values third-party referral traffic — while App Store categories, where Apple controls discovery itself, lose their affiliate channel.
First-order effects
- Affiliate publishers and deal sites lose their entire app and in-app purchase revenue line on October 1, with no replacement commission offered by Apple.
Second-order effects
- Publishers who built app-discount and roundup coverage around affiliate income must pivot to the remaining content categories or drop App Store coverage, shifting promotional power over apps fully to Apple's own App Store editorial and search placement.
Third-order effects
- The move fits a broader Apple pattern of pruning peripheral commerce programs — following the end of iTunes Allowances in 2016 — leaving affiliates only where Apple needs outside help selling against rivals, and consolidating everything else inside first-party channels.
The trend: Apple is steadily narrowing external revenue-sharing around its stores, retaining affiliate incentives only for media categories where it faces real competition for customers.