A British developer who sells a subscription fitness app has spent five years paying a 15 to 30 percent commission on every payment made inside the app, with no way to tell customers they could pay less on the web. On June 30, the Competition and Markets Authority opened a consultation that could change that arithmetic, proposing rules that would stop Apple and Google from restricting how developers steer users to outside payment options.
The proposed conduct requirements, published for public comment, would bar the two companies from limiting U.K. developers’ ability to direct users to websites or other platforms to complete payments, subscriptions and transactions. The rules are aimed at the practice regulators call steering: Apple currently bans it outright, and Google restricts it, with both companies collecting fees on in-app transactions that developers say leave them little room to compete on price.
The consultation is the latest step in Britain’s digital-markets regime, created by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. Under that law, the CMA designated both Apple and Google as holding strategic market status in mobile platforms in October 2025, a finding that gives the regulator power to impose conduct requirements without proving a full competition-law breach. The new proposals are the first mobile-specific requirements to reach the consultation stage.
The CMA has also moved on a second front: access to the near-field communication chip inside iPhones. Apple has historically reserved NFC access for Apple Pay, and its own program for third-party access, launched in late 2024, has produced no new products in Britain in eighteen months, according to the regulator. The CMA is exploring requirements that would force Apple to give fintechs and other developers access to the chip on fair terms, opening contactless payments, digital identity and other services to competition.
The proposals arrive as Google is already changing its own terms. On June 24, the company announced new global Play Store conditions, allowing developers to steer users outside the store to complete transactions, subject to restrictions, and revised its fee structure. The CMA said it will assess whether those changes go far enough, and the consultation will test whether Google’s voluntary move meets the regulator’s standard or whether a formal requirement is still needed.
Apple and Google defend their fees as the cost of maintaining secure platforms, and both companies have argued that steering rules would undermine the app-store model that funds development tools and security. Apple has said in previous proceedings that its commission rates are competitive and that developers benefit from its distribution. The companies are expected to respond in detail during the consultation period, which runs through late July.
The stakes extend beyond Britain. Regulators in the European Union, the United States and elsewhere have pursued similar questions, with the EU’s Digital Markets Act imposing obligations on both companies and U.S. courts ruling in the Epic Games case that Apple must allow developers to point users to outside payment methods. Britain’s regime, with its strategic market status designations, is among the most direct: it can impose requirements after consultation, without waiting for a finding of wrongdoing in a specific case.
For developers, the practical effect would be a shift in the economics of mobile distribution. A developer who can steer users to a web subscription keeps more of each payment, and the savings can fund lower prices or more features. The CMA has said it expects steering fees, if any, to be lower than current app-store commissions, with the difference passed on to customers or reinvested in development.
The path from consultation to requirement takes months. The CMA will review responses, publish a decision and then begin enforcement if the requirements are imposed. Companies found in breach of conduct requirements face penalties of up to 10 percent of global turnover. The regulator has said it expects to decide on the steering requirements later this year, with the NFC work to follow a separate timetable.
The fees at issue are among the most contested in technology. Apple charges developers a 30 percent commission on most digital transactions in its app store, reduced to 15 percent for small businesses and subscriptions in their second year, and Google charges a similar structure on the Play Store. For a subscription app, the commission can consume a third of revenue, and the ability to steer users to a web payment can nearly double what the developer keeps from each sale.
Google’s June 24 announcement complicates the CMA’s task. The company changed its Play Store terms globally to allow steering, and it revised its fee structure, and it will argue that a formal conduct requirement is unnecessary because the market has already moved. The CMA has signaled it will test whether Google’s voluntary terms match what a requirement would mandate, including whether developers can steer users without facing punitive fees or technical friction.
The consultations also put Britain at the center of a global rethinking of app-store economics. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act has already forced changes on both companies, and U.S. courts have begun to break Apple’s payment monopoly. Britain’s regime is notable for its speed: the strategic market status designations give the CMA powers that other regulators have spent years seeking, and the consultation process is designed to produce decisions within months rather than years.
For the fitness developer in London, the consultation is the closest Britain has come to changing the terms of his business. Whether the proposed rules survive the review process will determine whether he can finally tell his customers, inside the app, where to pay less.
