Amazon Appstore will reduce developer revenue cut from 30% to 20% and give 10% in Free AWS Credit

The Amazon Appstore has announced that it will be reducing its cut of developer revenue from 30% to 20% for developers that earn less than $1 million in revenue per year. The new terms, which Amazon is calling the Amazon Appstore Small Business Accelerator Program, will also provide developers with AWS promotional credit in an amount equivalent to 10 percent of the developer’s revenue if they earn less than $1 million in revenue per year. If a developer chooses to use those AWS credits, that brings their total Amazon Appstore revenue share up from 70% to an equivalent of 90%.

DISCLAIMER: I publish apps in the Amazon Appstore which earn me revenue. I earn less than $1 million per year and will therefore qualify for this program and will financially benefit from this change. For that reason, my opinions are biased, so I will list only the facts and keep my opinions out of this article.

Apple announced last year that it will reduce its App Store’s developer revenue cut from 30% to 15% for developers that earn less than $1 million in revenue per year. This change went into effect at the start of 2021. Earlier this year, Google announced that it too will reduce the Play Store’s cut form 30% to 15%, but only for the first $1 million in annual revenu earned by all developers. That change will go into effect on July 1st.

This change by the Amazon Appstore brings its revenue share more closely in line with the new policies of Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. However, if smaller Amazon Appstore developers don’t use the extra 10% in AWS credits, which expire 12 months after being earned, they will not benefit as much from Amazon’s new policy as they would from Apple or Google’s new policies. Conversely, for developers that already spend more than 10% of their annual revenue on AWS fees, the new Amazon Appstore program will be more beneficial than Apple or Google’s program. Developers must link their AWS accounts to their Amazon Appstore accounts, once the new program launches, in order to receive the extra 10% AWS credit.