Netflix no longer allows new or returning users to pay for subscription through in-app purchase in its iOS app, requires them to sign up and pay via its website
Netflix is further distancing itself from Apple's iTunes tax bracket. Earlier this year, the streaming giant enabled iOS users …
Context & Ripple Effects
Netflix's relationship with Apple's payment rails has been running in reverse since it adopted in-app subscriptions in 2015 at the same monthly rate as the web, then became the top-grossing US iOS app by late 2016 — meaning a meaningful slice of its revenue was flowing through Apple's commission. In August 2018 it began testing an iTunes-billing bypass across 33 countries, redirecting would-be subscribers to the mobile web.
This move makes that test policy: new and returning iOS users can no longer pay inside the app at all and must sign up on Netflix's site. It is the middle step in an arc that ends years later with Netflix confirming removal of iTunes billing even for longtime subscribers.
First-order effects
- New and returning iPhone and iPad users must leave the app and enter payment details on Netflix's website, adding friction at exactly the moment of signup intent.
- Apple stops earning its App Store commission on every subscription started this way, while existing subscribers who signed up via iTunes keep paying through it for now.
Second-order effects
- Other top subscription apps face the same playbook decision: Netflix showed that a service with enough brand pull can route signups around the App Store without losing the iOS audience, weakening Apple's leverage over comparable 'reader' apps.
- Apple's response options narrow toward enforcement and accommodation — the path that eventually produced the API letting reader apps link out directly, which Netflix adopted in 2022 with a signup button pointing to its own site.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the App Store's cut on subscription services erodes tier by tier — first new signups, then legacy billing, as Netflix's confirmed removal of iTunes billing for longtime subscribers in 2024 shows — leaving Apple's commission concentrated on games and impulse purchases rather than recurring media subscriptions.
- The dispute foreshadows the broader regulatory and platform-policy fight over mandatory in-app billing, with large content providers as the wedge against default platform taxation.
The trend: Major subscription services are systematically migrating billing off Apple's App Store, converting the 30% commission from a default into a concession Apple has to defend app category by app category.