Google allowing alternative app payment, starting with Spotify
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Google (GOOG, GOOGL) is moving to let app developers offer users a chance to use their own billing systems rather than the one in Google's Play Store.
That starts with Spotify (NYSE:SPOT), which has announced a multi-year agreement on "User Choice Billing."
"Users whoâve downloaded Spotify from the Google Play Store will be presented with a choice to pay with either Spotifyâs payment system or with Google Play Billing," Spotify says in its blog. "For the first time, these two options will live side by side in the app. This will give everyone the freedom to subscribe and make purchases using the payment option of their choice directly in the Spotify app."
It's a small pilot for now, Google says.
It involves Spotify sending Google some chunk of the subscription fees it collects, though something less than the well publicized 30% cut. Google has noted previously that the vast majority of developers don't pay 30%, saying today 99% of developers qualify for a service fee of 15% or less.
The move follows controversy from the past couple of years, during which Google battled Epic Games over Fortnite and its alternative pay system, and the Play Store approach drew an antitrust lawsuit from state attorneys general.