How do I get the 15% Apple commission rate?

Enroll in the App Store Small Business Program (under $1M USD proceeds per year). Enrollment is not automatic. Separately, auto-renewable subscriptions drop to 15% after a subscriber has paid for one continuous year, regardless of the program.

When does Apple pay developers?

Roughly 33 days after the close of Apple's fiscal month, provided you exceed the minimum payout threshold for your region. Apple's fiscal months follow a 4-4-5 week pattern, so they don't align with calendar months.

What is a realistic net factor to estimate proceeds from gross revenue?

For a small-business-program app selling mostly in VAT countries, actual proceeds commonly land between 70% and 85% of the price customers paid, once commission and taxes are removed. Check a real financial report for your own storefront mix rather than trusting a single multiplier.

Revenue vs proceeds vs your Apple payout: which number should an indie developer use?

Q: Why is my Apple payout smaller than RevenueCat revenue?

RevenueCat reports the storefront price customers paid. Apple then subtracts its 15% or 30% commission, and in most countries VAT or sales tax that was already baked into the price. Payouts also follow Apple's fiscal calendar and its own currency conversion, so the bank transfer is later and smaller than the gross number.

Short answer: RevenueCat shows the price your customer paid. Apple pays you that price minus its 15/30% commission, minus VAT or sales tax that was already inside the price in most countries, converted at Apple's own FX rate, on Apple's fiscal calendar. For a typical small indie app that lands around 70–85% of gross — about a month later than you'd expect.

The decision table

Deciding about…	Use this number	Where it lives
Product: pricing, paywalls, "did the update work?"	Gross revenue (what customers paid)	RevenueCat
Cash planning: what's actually coming	Net proceeds per fiscal month	App Store Connect financial reports
Accounting: what really arrived	The bank transfer	Your bank statement / payments page

Use the wrong row and you get familiar failures: pricing decisions made on proceeds double-count Apple's cut, and cash forecasts made on gross always disappoint by 15–30% plus tax. The rest of this post explains why the three numbers differ — the four gaps between a customer's tap and your bank account.

Every indie developer hits this moment: RevenueCat says the month did $1,000, and the bank transfer says something like $612. Nobody stole anything. The two numbers measure different things at different times, and once you know the four gaps between them, the reconciliation is boring — which is what you want from money math.

Gap 1: the commission — 15% or 30%, and it's not automatic

Apple takes 30% by default. You get 15% in two separate ways, and people mix them up:

The Small Business Program — under $1M USD in proceeds per year. You have to enroll in App Store Connect; nobody flips the switch for you. If you never enrolled, you're paying 30% right now.
The subscription loyalty rate — any auto-renewable subscription drops to 15% after a subscriber has paid for one continuous year. This one is automatic, per subscriber.

Gap 2: VAT is already inside your price

In most of the world — the EU, UK, Japan, Australia, and dozens more — the price on the App Store includes VAT or an equivalent tax. Apple remits that tax before calculating your share. A €9.99 subscription in Germany contains €1.60 of VAT; your commission math starts from €8.39, not €9.99.

This is the gap that surprises people most, because US developers selling mostly to US customers barely see it (US sales tax is added at checkout in most states, not baked in). A European-heavy customer base can push total deductions well past the commission alone.

Gap 3: Apple's fiscal calendar is not your calendar

Apple runs a 4-4-5 fiscal calendar: fiscal months are exactly 4 or 5 weeks, so they drift against calendar months. Apple's "fiscal February" doesn't start on February 1st, and a purchase on the last day of a calendar month can land in the next fiscal period.

Payouts arrive roughly 33 days after fiscal month close, assuming you clear the minimum threshold for your region. Practical consequence: the transfer that arrives in early July mostly contains May's sales. If you reconcile calendar months against bank transfers, they will never line up, forever, and that's expected.

Gap 4: FX and withholding

Apple owes you money per currency, per storefront, and converts it with its own rates at its own time. If you estimate with ECB daily rates you'll land within a percent or two of the real number — close, never exact. Some countries (Japan is the common one for indies) also apply withholding tax unless you file the relevant tax forms, and you only see it on the payment side, not in the sales reports.

The two reports that actually contain the truth

App Store Connect gives you two very different report families, and one of them is a trap for revenue purposes:

Report	Cadence	What it contains
Sales & Trends (daily summaries)	Daily, next-day-ish	Units: downloads, updates, redownloads. Proceeds columns exist, but subscription transactions don't flow through the daily summary — for a subscription-first app it behaves like a units report.
Financial reports	Monthly, ~5 days after fiscal close	The real money: per-storefront net proceeds after commission and tax, per currency — the numbers your payout is built from.

If you're pulling data through the App Store Connect API: sales reports need any API key, but financial reports require a key with the Finance role. An App Manager key gets a 403 and no useful error message.

A sane reconciliation workflow

During the month: estimate with RevenueCat gross × a net factor. For a Small-Business-Program app with a European-leaning audience, somewhere between 0.70 and 0.85 is realistic. Derive yours once from a real financial report and stop guessing.
~5 days after fiscal close: replace the estimate with Apple's actual net proceeds from the financial report.
~33 days after close: the bank transfer arrives. Expect it to differ from your FX estimate by 1–2%; book the transfer as the final truth and move on.

Where FolioKit fits: it runs this exact workflow for you — RevenueCat gross as the live estimate, Apple's actual proceeds pulled from financial reports at fiscal close, and a per-app P&L where the bank payout you enter is the final line. The three numbers stop being a monthly archaeology project. See how the data joins.

FAQ

Why is my Apple payout smaller than RevenueCat revenue?

RevenueCat reports storefront prices. Apple deducts commission (15/30%) and, in most countries, VAT that was already in the price, then converts currencies itself and pays on its fiscal schedule. Smaller and later is the designed behavior, not an error.

Do I need to enroll in the Small Business Program to get 15%?

Yes. Under $1M in annual proceeds you qualify, but enrollment is a manual step in App Store Connect. Subscriptions older than one continuous year get 15% automatically either way.

Why do my daily sales reports show zero proceeds?

The daily summary has proceeds columns, but subscription activity is reported separately (in Apple's subscription report types), so for a subscription-first app the summary's money columns sit at or near zero. The payout truth lives in the monthly financial reports. Pulling daily "revenue" from sales summaries is the most common way indies convince themselves Apple lost their money.

When exactly does the money arrive?

About 33 days after Apple's fiscal month closes, if you're over the payout threshold. Fiscal months are 4 or 5 weeks long, so map them from Apple's published fiscal calendar rather than assuming calendar months.