Google is gradually opening up its billing policy on the Play Store. The “customer-choice billing”pilot program announced in March is now accepting registrations. Google describes the program in a support article, saying, “This pilot is designed to test offering an alternative billing option next to the Google Play payment system and to help us explore this option for users. We want to get feedback in different countries and make sure we can maintain a positive user experience.”
Google will not allow developers to use the pilot program for games that bring in the most money, but only for applications.
With “customer choice billing”, when the user enters the checkout system, a pop-up appears asking if they want to use Google Play billing or some other third party service. (This list of options should include Google Play billing.) However, in the European Economic Area, developers already have the option not to use Google Play billing at all thanks to the EU Digital Markets Act.
With the exception of a few ad tiers, Google and Apple charge around 30 percent not only for purchases of recently downloaded apps, but also for digital purchases within already downloaded apps. Many developers see these fees as excessive, and a push within both ecosystems to allow billing to third parties was originally envisioned as a solution to high app store fees. Various regulators forced the Google and Apple app store duopoly to open up payments, but Google and Apple did so without solving the underlying problem of high app store fees. Apple charges a 27 percent fee on purchases made outside of the app store – basically an initial fee of 30 percent minus a typical processing fee of 3 percent. charged by credit card companies. Google is doing something similar with this new program and will only cut fees by 4%.
You’ll still need to pay some kind of fee to a third-party payment processor, so with Google’s 4% discount, developers really aren’t saving money. Registration is now open if you’re interested!