Microsoft drops their cut of developer app revenue from 30% to as low as 5%

Microsoft developer blog:

Starting later this year, consumer applications (not including games) sold in Microsoft Store will deliver to developers 95% of the revenue earned from the purchase of your application or any in-app products in your application, when a customer uses a deep link to get to and purchase your application.

That’s a huge drop from the 70/30 split they had up to this point.

When Microsoft delivers you a customer through any other method, such as in a collection on Microsoft Store or any other owned Microsoft properties, and purchases your application, you will receive 85% of the revenue earned from the purchase of your application or any in-app products in your application

Note that this structure does not include games, which stick to the 70/30 split.

Does this apply any pressure to Apple to make a similar move? Windows is not quite a direct competitor to iOS, but the Windows market is massive.

Regardless, I like this move. Anything that helps improve the lot of the indie developer.

One thing Apple can do to one-up this move that would be even better for indie devs? Create a free tier, where up to, say the first $1,000 in sales goes 100% to the developer. Just a thought.