What sets the US storefront apart
On the US storefront, Apple's commission tiers work the same way they do elsewhere: 30% standard, 15% under the Small Business Program, and 15% on auto-renewable subscriptions after twelve consecutive paid months. What is distinctive is how developers may point customers at a payment method outside the app.
US rules on external purchase links have moved repeatedly, driven by litigation rather than by a single policy release. Over that period the entitlement developers had to request, the commission Apple charged on linked-out purchases, the disclosure sheet shown to the user, and the reporting obligations attached to it have all changed. Anything you read about the US storefront needs a date on it.
What this calculator models for the US is the position on its rule date: no additional Apple commission on a purchase completed through an external purchase link, following the 2025 injunction in Epic Games v. Apple. Earlier arrangements did charge one. The entitlement, the disclosure sheet and the reporting obligations have not gone away — the 0% is a commission figure, not permission to skip the paperwork.
Because this area moves through the courts rather than through release notes, the date on the rule set is part of the number. If the position changes, the figure here changes with it, which is why every result on this site is stamped with the rule set it came from.
Sales tax is not VAT
US sales tax works differently from EU VAT, and this calculator's tax estimate for the US storefront is zero by default rather than a blended rate. That is a modelling choice, not a claim that digital goods are untaxed in the US — nexus rules, state-level treatment of digital products, and your merchant-of-record arrangement all matter.
If you sell through Apple, Apple handles much of that collection and remittance. If you move checkout to your own stack, you either take it on or pay someone a percentage to take it on. Either way it belongs in the comparison, so add it to your processor assumption rather than leaving it out.
Reading the US comparison
The figures above are estimates based on the region and assumptions you selected. They compare economics only; they do not tell you whether a given payment arrangement is permitted for your app today.
Before acting on the result, check Apple's current developer documentation for the US storefront and confirm what your own funnel data says about checkout drop-off. The break-even percentage is most useful as a threshold to test that data against.