Google Was Fined 430 Million Euro Over Your Checkout Link: The Fee Math to Run Now

The most useful sentence in the European Commission's 23 July decision against Google is the one that went unquoted. The Commission did not say Google may not charge developers for sending them a customer. It said the opposite: "While Google can receive a fee for facilitating the initial acquisition of a new customer by an app developer via Google Play, the level of the steering-related fees charged by Google and the length of the charging period for these fees went beyond what is considered compliant with the DMA." Level and length. Both of those numbers are published on Google's own help pages, which means an EEA developer can read exactly what is under review and price two routes out of Play billing this afternoon. The fine was 430 million euro for the Play conduct, part of an 890 million euro total. The decision orders Google to end the conduct; it does not tell you what the fees become.

What the Commission actually objected to

The decision states the baseline duty: developers distributing through Google Play "should be able to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative, often cheaper, offers, and to direct them to those offers to make purchases, for example on websites or alternative app stores." The finding is that Google "prevents app developers from freely communicating and promoting offers and concluding contracts with users in distribution channels of their choice, including third-party app stores." The other 460 million euro covers self-preferencing in Google Search, which is a separate matter for a separate week.

Now put that next to Google's published EEA terms. Under the general conditions of access for Google Play in the EEA, a developer who sends a user out of the app to buy elsewhere pays an initial acquisition fee "limited to a period of 2 years" at 5% for automatically renewing subscriptions and 10% for other in-app consumable offers, plus a separate ongoing services fee "for the duration of the ongoing services" at 7% for subscriptions and 17% for other offers. Developers "may opt out of receiving ongoing services from Google Play, after the initial acquisition period of 2 years, subject to users agreeing and enabling the opt out."

Read the two documents together and the Commission's phrasing stops being abstract. A two-year charging window on a customer who left your app, with the exit from the second fee gated behind that same two-year mark, is a specific length. Twelve per cent on a subscription that Google is not processing is a specific level. Those are the numbers a compliance order now sits on top of.

The three routes, with the published fee for each

For context on the base rates: Google's service fee page puts the general rate at 15% on the first million dollars of annual revenue and 30% above it, with subscriptions at 15% regardless of revenue. There is also an EEA-specific option for developers using an alternative billing system exclusively, which takes 3 percentage points off the standard fee rather than 4.

Our arithmetic on 10,000 euro a month

Take an EEA subscription app doing 10,000 euro a month, all new installs, and price each route. The processor assumption is Stripe's published Irish rate of 1.5% plus 0.25 euro for standard EEA cards, plus Billing at the pay-as-you-go rate of 0.7% of volume. Substitute your own numbers; the shape of the answer is what matters.

At a 10 euro average subscription (1,000 charges a month):

• Play billing at 15%: 1,500 euro to Google. Net 8,500 euro.
• User choice billing at 11%: 1,100 euro to Google, plus 150 euro plus 250 euro of card fees and 70 euro of Billing. Total 1,570 euro. Net 8,430 euro.
• External offers in year one at 12%: 1,200 euro to Google, plus 470 euro of processing. Total 1,670 euro. Net 8,330 euro.

At a low ticket price, leaving Play billing loses you money. The 0.25 euro fixed fee per charge is 2.5% of a 10 euro subscription on its own, and it eats the entire discount Google offers for bringing your own processor.

At a 50 euro average subscription (200 charges a month):

• Play billing at 15%: 1,500 euro. Net 8,500 euro.
• User choice billing at 11%: 1,100 euro plus 270 euro of processing. Net 8,630 euro.
• External offers in year one at 12%: 1,200 euro plus 270 euro. Net 8,530 euro.
• External offers after the two-year acquisition window, ongoing services fee only at 7%: 700 euro plus 270 euro. Net 9,030 euro.

Two conclusions fall out. First, the fixed component of card pricing, not the platform percentage, decides this for low-ticket apps. Second, the external offers route only overtakes user choice billing once the initial acquisition fee expires, which is precisely the duration the Commission has called non-compliant. If that window shortens, the ranking changes, and it changes in favour of the route that also gives you the customer relationship. That is worth knowing before you build anything.

Enrolling, exactly

Google's external offers enrolment page sets the sequence. Requirements first: a registered business account, EEA users only, and an app that does not exclusively target children.

1. In Play Console, open the External offers page and select Manage, then + Add countries/regions to pick your EEA markets, then Save changes.
2. Integrate the external offers APIs before you launch any external link. Reporting runs through them, and it is not optional.
3. If you link to app downloads, go to Settings > Register external apps and submit every linked app version. Google warns review can take 7 days or longer, so this is the step that sets your timeline.
4. Declare your external content links under Monitor and improve > Policy and programs > App content, supplying package names, landing page URLs and download links.
5. Report every authorised transaction within 24 hours of completion. Build that into the webhook that confirms the payment, not into a nightly job.

User choice billing is the lighter option: enrol through Play Console's alternative billing settings, accept the terms, wait for the confirmation email, and integrate the alternative billing APIs. It keeps Google in the checkout while cutting 4 points, and it does not require you to build an out-of-app purchase flow.

Who should not move

If your average transaction is under about 20 euro, stay on Play billing until your prices change, because the arithmetic above does not work for you at any of the current rates. If you sell to EEA consumers and have never handled VAT yourself, price that work honestly before you take it on; the gap between a platform fee and a self-run stack is smaller than it looks once tax, refunds and failed cards are yours, which is the same trade we costed in merchant of record versus a DIY stack. And if you are under a million dollars in annual revenue, check first whether you are already in the reduced-rate programmes described in the discounts neither store applies automatically, because that is a bigger saving than anything here and it costs one form.

What changes this week is smaller than the headline number and more useful: a regulator has put a specific fee schedule under a compliance order and told the gatekeeper that both its size and its duration are wrong. Developers who have already integrated the external offers APIs will be positioned to benefit the day those numbers move. Everyone else will read about it. Add the fee schedule to whatever you use to track what one company can change about your economics, and check it again in sixty days.