The DMA for UA operators, in plain terms

What actually changed on January 1

Apple's new EU App Store terms took effect at the start of the year, and the headline change for anyone modelling app economics in Europe is straightforward. The per-install Core Technology Fee that developers on Apple's original DMA terms had to pay has gone. In its place sits a 5% Core Technology Commission charged on digital goods revenue for developers who choose Apple's standard new terms. That is a meaningful structural shift: a per-install fee scaled with distribution whether or not an install ever converted to revenue, which made it an awkward number for a UA team to model against, since it charged for reach rather than for outcome. A revenue-based commission scales with the thing a UA team actually tracks. Monetised outcome is a far more familiar shape for anyone used to modelling a standard app store commission.

The Coalition for App Fairness, the developer advocacy group that has pushed back on Apple's DMA compliance since the regulation's first implementation attempt, said publicly that it still doesn't consider the new terms compliant with the regulation's intent. That objection matters for the calendar rather than for today's operating reality. It signals an arrangement that isn't settled; a UA or finance team should not treat the current 5% commission structure as necessarily permanent, even though it's the operating rule right now.

Alternative marketplaces and link-outs, where things actually stand

The DMA's alternative app marketplace provisions, which have allowed third-party iOS app stores in the EU since the regulation's first implementation window, remain the more structurally significant change for anyone thinking beyond fee percentages. For a UA operator, an alternative marketplace isn't primarily a distribution opportunity yet. Uptake and scale on these marketplaces have stayed modest relative to the App Store itself. But it is a second data point worth tracking for what it implies about future Google Play developments in the EU, since Google has faced parallel pressure to open its own store to alternatives.

Link-out provisions, which let developers direct users to external payment pages without Apple's in-app purchase mechanism or its associated commission, are the other structural piece worth separating clearly from the fee conversation. Link-outs come out of the Epic v Apple litigation in the US rather than any DMA-specific EU mechanism, and conflating the two in a briefing to stakeholders is one of the more common ways this topic gets garbled internally. A UA team operating across both the EU and the US needs to track these as two separate compliance and opportunity tracks, not one.

What a UA team should actually model

For most UA operators, the immediate practical task is narrower than the regulatory picture suggests. Recalculate unit economics under the new 5% commission structure instead of the old per-install fee: a title with strong monetisation but modest install volume will generally come out better than it did under the previous per-install model, while a title with high install volume and thin monetisation may come out worse, since the fee now tracks revenue rather than reach.

It also means building a standing watch on this topic rather than treating January's change as final.

The Coalition for App Fairness's continued objection, set against the broader pattern of EU regulatory pressure on Apple's App Store terms since the DMA's first implementation, suggests further adjustment is plausible. A finance model that assumes today's 5% commission holds for the year is carrying more assumption risk than the situation supports.

The one thing not to do

One mistake is worth calling out directly. Don't build a European unit economics model around alternative marketplaces or link-outs as if they were already a meaningful distribution channel for game UA. As of now they remain a compliance and optionality story rather than a volume one. The commission structure change is the number that actually moves a UA team's spreadsheet today, and everything else here is worth watching, not yet worth planning around.

That distinction, between what has changed and what merely could change, belongs in the briefing a UA team gives to finance this quarter. The commission swap already sits in Apple's developer terms with a date attached, which makes it safe to model directly. The marketplace and link-out questions are directional and still moving. They belong on the platform desk's standing watch list rather than in a line of this year's budget.

Related archive reading

These articles provide related context and remain subject to their stated review status.

• Apple's Core Technology Commission and the 5% math
• The DMA's First App Store Fees: Apple and Meta Fined