The app store terms you never negotiated are now up for negotiation
On 14 August the CMA published consultation responses on proposed steering rules for Apple and Google’s mobile platforms: what developers can tell users about paying off-platform, and whether the fee charged for doing so has to be fair. If your business sells through an app store, this is not background regulatory noise. It is a live change to your payment economics.
On 14 August 2026 the CMA published consultation responses on proposed steering requirements for Apple and Google’s mobile platforms, the latest live step in the UK’s digital-markets intervention programme. The proposals reach two things at once: whether developers can tell users about paying off-platform, and whether the fee a platform charges when they do has to be fair and reasonable. Neither app-store terms nor the fee sitting behind them are the fixed infrastructure most businesses treat them as.
What the CMA actually published
Consultation responses on proposed steering requirements for Apple and Google, published 14 August 2026, under the CMA’s strategic market status powers.
The Competition and Markets Authority has designated Apple and Google’s mobile ecosystems with strategic market status under the UK’s digital markets regime, and is using that status to consider specific conduct requirements. The 14 August publication is a consultation response document, not a final rule: it sets out how respondents, including developers, platforms and industry bodies, reacted to the CMA’s earlier proposals on steering.
The underlying proposals address two linked restrictions. The first is a platform preventing a developer from communicating off-platform purchasing options to a user inside the app. The second is the fee a platform charges when a purchase does happen off-platform, and whether that fee is set at a level that makes the steering right meaningless in practice even where it is formally permitted.
Consultation responses matter because they show where the CMA’s thinking is heading before the requirements are fixed. A business reading only the eventual final decision has missed the window to shape it, or to prepare for it early.
What a “steering fee” actually is
The right to steer means little if the fee for doing so is set high enough to make it unattractive.
Steering is the plain term for a developer telling a user, inside or around the app, that they can pay somewhere other than the platform’s own in-app payment system, typically the developer’s own website, at a lower effective cost. Regulators in several jurisdictions have already forced platforms to permit some form of steering. What has proven harder to fix is the fee.
A platform that allows steering but then charges a commission on the off-platform transaction anyway, set close to its standard in-app take, has conceded the principle without conceding the economics. The CMA’s proposals go directly at this: they include principles aimed at whether any steering fee is fair and reasonable, not simply whether steering is permitted at all.
Permission to steer without a fair fee is not really a concession. It is the same commission with an extra click.
That distinction, between the right to communicate off-platform pricing and the cost of actually using it, is the part of this story most worth tracking closely.
Why this affects far more than Apple and Google
The conduct requirements under consultation bind the platforms, because they are the entities with strategic market status. But the commercial effect runs through to every app, SaaS and subscription business that distributes through iOS or Android, whether or not it took part in the consultation.
App-store terms function as infrastructure for most digital businesses: fixed, non-negotiable, assumed. That assumption is what this consultation disturbs. A lower or more predictable steering fee changes the relative cost of the in-app payment channel against a direct one, changes customer acquisition economics if a business can now legitimately advertise a cheaper direct-pay option, and changes how dependent a subscription business is on a single platform’s payment rails.
Businesses that treat this as “an Apple and Google story” will miss the point at which their own pricing, margin and customer-communication choices stop being fixed by platform terms and start being choices again.
What to review in the distribution agreement
Map what you are contractually barred from doing today against what the proposals would permit.
Most developer distribution agreements were drafted, or last varied, before this consultation existed. They typically contain broad restrictions on communicating pricing or purchasing options outside the platform’s own system, a commission schedule that applies regardless of where the underlying purchase completes, restrictions on customer communication more generally that can sweep in legitimate off-platform marketing, and a unilateral variation mechanism that lets the platform change terms with limited notice.
None of that has changed yet as a result of the 14 August publication. What has changed is the direction of travel, and a distribution agreement that has not been read since it was signed is not a safe position to hold while that direction is set.
What to put in the pricing and margin model
Build the scenario for a changed steering fee before the final requirements arrive, not after.
Platform fee exposure belongs in pricing and margin modelling as a variable, not a constant. Businesses negotiating downstream customer or partner arrangements, reseller terms, channel agreements, enterprise contracts with committed pricing, should build at least two scenarios: one where the effective cost of an off-platform transaction falls meaningfully, and one where the platforms hold the line close to current levels while conceding only the communication right.
- Separate the platform fee from your base cost of goods in any internal margin model, so a change in one does not require rebuilding the whole pricing structure.
- Price scenario-test a lower off-platform commission against your current in-app pricing, so you know in advance whether a direct-pay channel becomes commercially attractive.
- Flag platform fee terms in any multi-year customer or partner contract you are about to sign, so a future change in app-store economics does not get locked out by your own commitment.
- Keep a record of what the platform currently prevents you from communicating to users about pricing, so you can move quickly once any restriction is lifted rather than rediscovering it later.
- Brief whoever owns customer acquisition spend on the possibility of a cheaper direct channel, since customer acquisition strategy, not just payments, is what a lower effective fee actually changes.
What changes to watch for
Publication of consultation responses is a procedural step, not the finish line. The CMA typically moves from responses of this kind to a settled position on the specific conduct requirements it intends to impose, followed by an implementation period during which the platforms must comply. Expect further published material before any steering right or fee principle takes binding effect.
Businesses trading in the EU as well as the UK should also track the Digital Markets Act’s parallel steering provisions separately. The two regimes address the same underlying restriction but run on different legal bases, different timetables and different enforcement bodies, and compliance with one does not stand in for the other.
The practical discipline is to treat this as a live file, not a single news item. A contract review and a pricing model built today should be revisited each time the CMA issues its next procedural step, not filed away until a final rule appears.
Questions this raises
Six questions the CMA’s app-store steering consultation tends to prompt, answered directly.
What did the CMA publish on 14 August 2026?
The Competition and Markets Authority published consultation responses on proposed steering requirements for Apple and Google’s mobile platforms, part of its live digital-markets intervention under the strategic market status regime. The proposals target restrictions that stop developers telling users about, or linking to, purchasing options outside the app store, and set out principles for whether any steering fee the platforms charge is fair and reasonable.
What is a steering fee and why does it matter?
A steering fee is a charge a platform applies when a developer directs a user to complete a purchase outside the app’s native in-app payment system, for example on the developer’s own website. Historically these fees have been set high enough to make off-platform payment commercially unattractive even once permitted. The CMA’s proposals go to whether that fee itself, not just the right to steer, has to be fair and reasonable.
Does this only affect Apple and Google?
No. The obligations fall on Apple and Google as the platforms with strategic market status, but the commercial effect lands on every developer, SaaS provider and subscription business that distributes through their app stores. A change to steering rights and steering fees changes payment-channel economics, customer acquisition cost and platform dependency for anyone selling through iOS or Android, whether or not they were party to the consultation.
What should a developer review in its distribution agreement now?
The current app store terms on off-platform communication and linking, any commission or fee schedule tied to purchases made outside in-app payment, restrictions on customer communication generally, and whatever notice or variation mechanism the platform uses to change these terms. Businesses should map what they are contractually barred from doing today against what the proposals would permit, so they are ready to act rather than reacting after the rules land.
Should pricing and margin models change now or wait for the final decision?
Model it now, decide later. Businesses should build scenarios for a lower effective platform fee on off-platform purchases and for a fee that stays close to current levels, so the pricing and margin work is not started from scratch once the CMA issues its final requirements. Treating today’s platform fee as a fixed cost line, rather than a variable subject to regulatory change, is the more common planning error.
What happens after the consultation responses are published?
Publication of consultation responses is not the final rule. The CMA typically moves from responses to a decision on the specific conduct requirements it will impose on the platform under strategic market status, followed by an implementation period. Developers should expect further procedural steps before any steering requirement or fee principle takes binding effect, and should use the gap to prepare contracts and pricing rather than to wait it out.
Sources
- UK Competition and Markets Authority, mobile platform steering consultation responses, published 14 August 2026.
- UK Competition and Markets Authority, strategic market status designations for Apple’s and Google’s mobile ecosystems, digital markets, competition and consumers regime.
- European Commission, Digital Markets Act guidance on anti-steering provisions for gatekeeper app stores, for comparative reference only.
Selling through an app store?
Eliga provides embedded commercial and technology counsel to scaling businesses. If your distribution agreement, pricing model or customer-communication rights have not been reviewed against where the CMA’s proposals are heading, we should look at them before the final requirements do it for you.
This page is general information about UK digital markets law and app platform regulation. It is not legal advice and does not create a solicitor-client relationship. Take specific advice on anything you are about to negotiate or sign.