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Comment by falafel_muncher | Hacker News Reader

> most developers will happily just opt for Apple's system if the rates make sense

The _buyer_ experience with Apple's IAP is mostly good, but I would argue that the developer experience is downright horrible. Working with subscriptions and IAP receipts is clunky. You can only use one of about 100 SKUs, which makes it difficult to offer discounts and customized pricing at the higher price tiers, where the gaps between amounts are quite large. Until recently, it wasn't even possible for developers to issue refunds!

Even if Stripe charged 30%, I would choose them every time over Apple's IAP.

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Thanks for the explanation. They must be talking about UX indeed.

I have implemented subscription using many APIs (stripe, PayPal, processout, Apple, Amazon, Android...) And Apple is by far the shittiest.

And you cannot even refund your own customers...

> And you cannot even refund your own customers...

I was looking at StoreKit earlier today and saw https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transacti... as part of it. I realize that this is new with iOS 15... but there's something there now.

Ah indeed there is... something.

This is from yesterday https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/10/apples-storekit-2-simplifi...

> “They’ve made the process a bit smoother, but developers still can’t initiate refunds or cancellations themselves,” notes RevenueCat CEO Jacob Eiting, whose company provides tools to app developers to manage their in-app purchases. “It’s a step in the right direction, but could actually lead to more confusion between developers and consumers about who is responsible for issuing refunds.”

> In other words, because the forms are now going to be more accessible from inside the app, the customer may believe the developer is handling the refund process when, really, Apple continues to do so.

Yeah, maybe that's even worse...

> Even if Stripe charged 30%, I would choose them every time over Apple's IAP.

Note that Apple is charging 15% for small developers ( https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-s... ) - not 30%.

Stripe's rates are $0.30 + 3% ( https://stripe.com/pricing ). Paypal is a quite a bit better at $0.09 + 5% for micropayments.

For a $0.99 IAP through Apple (with all of the associated infrastructure to handle IAP) that would cost $0.15 to the developer.

That same purchase through Stripe would cost $0.33... and the developer would need to provide some way to handle IAP. Paypal would be the same as through Apple.

That "set up some way to handle IAP" is going to be interesting too.

> Note that Apple is charging 15% for small developers ( https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-s... ) - not 30%.

Defaults matter. Based on what they've shared so far developers must qualify for and choose to enroll in this system. In other words, Apple isn't charging 15% for small businesses, they're charging 15% for Small Business Program participants. That's an important distinction.

It's also worth mentioning that if you have transferred an app to or from your developer account for any reason, you're not eligible for this program. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program...

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