Apple just told a federal court it wants to charge developers as much as 15 percent on purchases made after users click external links from iOS apps. The proposal landed Thursday in the latest chapter of its marathon antitrust fight with Epic Games. And it comes with a striking admission: the actual costs to Apple of handling those links sit near zero.
The Verge obtained the filing hours after it reached the court. In it Apple lays out tiered rates — 15 percent for most standard apps, 10 percent for participants in its Video, News, and Mini Apps partner programs plus subscription renewals, and 5 percent for apps qualifying for the Small Business Program. Yet its own experts concluded the “necessary costs” defined by the Ninth Circuit “would be essentially zero.”
So why ask for money at all? Apple argues it should still recoup “at least some compensation” for the platform it provides. The company says large numbers of U.S. developers would still find linking out profitable. Short sentence. Direct challenge.
Epic fired back immediately. The proposal sits “far outside of the bounds” of the court’s guidance, the Fortnite maker said. Tim Sweeney, Epic’s chief executive, highlighted on X that Apple itself conceded a zero-cost figure under the appeals court’s definition. Developers now have roughly 60 days to file their opposition backed by expert witnesses.
The contempt finding that forced this reckoning dates to April 2025.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled then that Apple had “willfully” violated her 2021 injunction. That earlier order, issued after the original 2020 trial, required Apple to let developers direct users to outside payment systems without interference. Apple complied on paper. It added links. But it also imposed a 27 percent commission on any purchase completed outside the App Store within seven days of a user clicking one of those links. The judge called the workaround commercially unusable. She banned Apple from collecting any commission tied to external purchases and barred discouraging messages or restrictive design rules.
The Ninth Circuit largely upheld the contempt finding in December 2025. Reuters reported the panel agreed Apple violated the injunction but sent the case back so the district court could consider what “appropriate commission or fee limitation” Apple might charge based solely on its genuine and reasonably necessary costs for coordinating those external links.
Apple tried to pause the remand proceedings while it asked the Supreme Court to review the contempt holding. A Reuters dispatch from late June noted the high court agreed to hear the appeal. This week the justices declined to issue a full stay. They gave Apple just 24 hours to submit its proposal along with supporting calculations and evidence. Epic gets the next move.
Two days ago a federal court rejected Apple’s latest delay bid, according to multiple reports including Notebookcheck. The clock is running. A hearing will follow Epic’s response.
This isn’t abstract legal wrangling. The outcome will decide how much money flows from the roughly two billion active iOS devices to developers and, by extension, to Apple. For years the standard App Store commission sat at 30 percent on initial purchases and 15 percent on subscriptions after year one. Small developers in the business program paid 15 percent from the start. Those numbers generated billions in annual revenue for Apple while fueling complaints that the company leveraged its gatekeeper position to extract rents.
Developers cheered the 2021 injunction. Many hoped external links would let them bypass the cut entirely. Apple’s 27 percent workaround blunted that hope. The contempt ruling restored it — until the Ninth Circuit carved out room for a cost-based fee. Now the fight centers on how small that fee can be.
Apple insists any commission must reflect the broader value of its platform, not merely marginal link-handling expenses. Its filing points to expert analysis showing developers would still come out ahead. Epic counters that the appeals court spoke clearly: only genuinely necessary costs qualify. Sweeney has called Apple’s past 27 percent charge a “junk fee.” He repeated the phrase this week.
But the case no longer stands alone. Regulators worldwide watch closely. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act forced Apple to open iOS to alternative app marketplaces and payment systems, though the company imposed its own new fees there. Brazil reached a settlement with Apple that allows alternative payments with commissions ranging from 10 to 21 percent depending on the method, 9to5Mac reported in June. Epic and the Coalition for App Fairness slammed those terms as anticompetitive.
In the U.S. the stakes feel immediate. A decision that lets Apple charge 15 percent on link-out purchases would preserve much of the status quo. A ruling closer to zero would hand developers real leverage and potentially accelerate shifts toward web-based commerce inside apps. Either way the judge must balance the record built over six years of litigation.
Fortnite itself remains absent from the U.S. App Store. Epic pulled the game in 2020 after Apple blocked its direct-payment system. A brief global return occurred earlier this year amid the Supreme Court proceedings, Quartz noted in May, but the core U.S. dispute grinds on.
Analysts expect the district court to schedule a hearing before year’s end. The Supreme Court’s review of the contempt issue could stretch into 2027. That leaves developers in limbo. Many already route users to the web for subscriptions and large purchases to avoid commissions where possible. A final number from Judge Gonzalez Rogers will clarify the economics for years ahead.
Apple’s admission that its necessary costs equal roughly nothing hands Epic a powerful exhibit. Yet the company’s broader platform argument may resonate with a court wary of rewriting entire business models. The original 2021 verdict found Apple held monopoly power in the iOS app distribution market but rejected most of Epic’s antitrust claims. This remand focuses narrowly on the remedy for Apple’s noncompliance.
So the numbers matter. Fifteen percent. Ten percent. Five percent. Zero. Each carries consequences measured in hundreds of millions of dollars across the app economy. Short statements. Long-term effects that will echo through boardrooms and courtrooms alike.
Epic says it will file its opposition with expert testimony. Apple will reply. Then the judge decides. The fight that began with a blue-eyed Fortnite character clicking a “Buy Now” button outside Apple’s system has become a grinding battle over basis points and legal interpretations of “necessary.” It shows no sign of ending soon.