The App Store Small Business Program pays 15%, and nobody enrolls you into it.

Who qualifies, and what does the 1 million USD measure?

Two groups qualify. Existing developers who made up to 1 million USD in proceeds in the prior calendar year for all their apps, and developers new to the App Store. The word carrying the weight is proceeds. Apple defines proceeds as sales net of Apple's commission and certain taxes and adjustments, so the figure is what reached your bank account, not what customers paid at the till. Gross sales above a million can still leave proceeds below it, and plenty of developers rule themselves out by measuring the wrong number.

The window is not the calendar year either. Apple counts the 12 fiscal months occurring within the previous calendar year, on its own fiscal calendar, and writes the condition twice: no more than 1 million USD in total proceeds across that window, and no more than 1 million USD during the current year. Participation depends on both, so the test is not something you pass once in January.

Apple publishes how to estimate it, which saves an argument with your accountant. Add up the App Store payments deposited into your bank account over the prior calendar year, then modify that total with the taxes and adjustments shown in the Payments and Financial Reports section of App Store Connect. If your bank account is not in USD, convert using a publicly available exchange rate that corresponds with the end of each fiscal month in Apple's fiscal calendar, then apply the taxes and adjustments to the USD total. Add the proceeds of any Associated Developer Accounts on top.

Those associated accounts are the second thing people miss. An Associated Developer Account is an Apple Developer Program account that you own or control, or one that owns or controls your account. Apple gives four tests: you hold majority interest, over 50%, in another account, another member holds majority interest in yours, you have ultimate decision-making authority over another account, or another member holds that authority over yours. The collective proceeds of every related account must stay under the threshold, and for each one you declare the name, the Team ID, the Account Holder email address and a description of the relationship.

Nothing here is per app. Eligibility is measured across all of your apps and all of your associated accounts together, and the reduced commission then applies to the Account Holder's paid apps and Apple In-App Purchases. App transfers are allowed, with a catch worth reading twice: when an app is transferred, the proceeds for that calendar year are associated with every account that initiated or accepted the transfer. Taking on somebody else's app can move you over the line in a year you never sold a million of anything. For the fees that stay the same whichever rate you are on, see the cost of publishing.

Apple, App Store Small Business Program, read 10 October 2026

Does Apple enroll you automatically, or do you apply?

You apply. There is no silent upgrade when your sales look small enough, and no email telling you that you have been moved. Apple sets out three requirements: be an Account Holder in the Apple Developer Program, review and accept the latest Paid Apps agreement in App Store Connect, and, if applicable, list all of your Associated Developer Accounts. Then your enrollment goes for approval.

The agreement is the step with a screen, so here is the path. In App Store Connect, select Business at the top of the page, open the Agreements tab, find the Paid Apps row and click View and Agree to Terms. You may be prompted for a two-factor verification code before you can continue. Read the terms, then click Agree. App Store Connect Help is blunt about the next part: once you have accepted the terms of this agreement, you cannot undo the action.

Only the Account Holder can sign it. Not an Admin, not an App Manager, not a Marketing user. In a two person company that detail decides your timeline, because the Account Holder is often whoever set up the membership and has not logged in since. There is a related trap for anyone returning to the store: if you renew your membership after it has expired, you agree to the Paid Apps agreement again, and it must be active before you can submit or update paid apps and In-App Purchases at all.

Versions matter too. When a new version of the Paid Apps agreement is available an alert appears in App Store Connect, and you cannot create a new app or a new In-App Purchase until you have agreed to the most recent one. The path is the same Business, Agreements, Paid Apps row, and that dialog ends in Submit rather than Agree. Since enrollment asks for the latest Paid Apps agreement specifically, a signature from three years ago does not carry you. If adding subscriptions is on your list, do the agreement first, because those products are exactly what the 15% applies to.

App Store Connect Help, sign and update agreements, read 10 October 2026

When does the reduced rate actually start?

Fifteen days after the end of the fiscal calendar month in which your enrollment is approved. Apple gives the worked example itself: an enrollment approved on 10 February 2022 has proceeds adjusted starting 14 March 2022. Read that twice before you plan a launch around it. The rate is not backdated to the day you applied, and it is not backdated to the start of the year.

Two things follow. The fiscal month your approval lands in decides most of the wait, so approval on the second day of a fiscal month sits out almost the whole month plus 15 days, while approval near the end of one waits barely longer than a fortnight. And every sale before that date settles at the standard rate, with no credit later. Apple's page publishes no annual enrollment deadline, which sounds relaxing and is not: the deadline that matters is your own first paid download.

Where you confirm it is the Payments and Financial Reports section of App Store Connect, the same place Apple points you at for estimating proceeds in the first place. If the rate has not moved after the date you calculated, that is a support question rather than something to wait out, and Apple Developer Support takes it by phone or email.

One benefit of enrollment has nothing to do with commission, and it is recent enough to be worth naming. Apple's own Q&A says that if you are enrolled in the App Store Small Business Program with fewer than two million first-time App Store downloads, you are eligible to use Apple Foundation Models running on Private Cloud Compute with no cloud API cost, once the Private Cloud Compute entitlement is assigned to your account. For a small app with an AI feature in it, that is a second reason to get the paperwork done, checked on 10 October 2026.

Apple, App Store Small Business Program, Q and A, read 10 October 2026

What happens in the year you cross 1 million USD?

The standard commission rate applies to future sales. That is the whole of it, and the two words doing the work are future sales. Crossing the threshold in July does not reprice January, and nobody sends an invoice for the difference. What changes is what you keep from the sale after the one that took you over.

The route back is published too. If your proceeds fall below the 1 million USD threshold in a future calendar year, you can re-qualify for the 15% commission the year after. So the cycle is slow in both directions. One strong year costs you the reduced rate for the rest of it, and a quieter year earns it back the following one. What Apple's page does not say is whether re-qualifying means walking the enrollment steps again, so treat that as a question for Apple Developer Support rather than an assumption.

Keep watching the agreement as well as the number. A lapsed membership, a renewed one, or a new version of the Paid Apps agreement all put you back in the Business tab of App Store Connect, and an unsigned current agreement blocks new apps and new In-App Purchases regardless of which commission rate you are on. Updating your legal entity name or address can generate a new Paid Apps agreement too, which you accept after the update finishes processing.

The one figure Apple does not print on the program page is the standard rate itself. It says only standard commission rate, so if you are modelling the cliff, take the number from what Apple charges and apply it to the sales you expect after the crossing date. One detail for anyone trading in Europe: Apple says that for developers on the alternative terms in the EU who are in the program, and for subscriptions after their first year, it offers a further reduced commission of 10%.

App Store Connect Help, sign and update agreements, read 10 October 2026