Apple’s US rules for linking players to your web shop

What a US iOS game can do today

Apple rewrote guideline 3.1.1(a) in May 2025, days after a federal judge held it in contempt of court. The US exception now reads:

In practice, a game on the US storefront can:

• put a button in the in-game store that opens your web shop;
• say why the player should go there, including a price or a bonus;
• deep-link to a specific offer with the player already signed in;
• place those links wherever Apple places its own in-app purchase buttons, at the same size.

Apple can show one screen as the player leaves. The courts limited it to “a neutral message apprising users that they are leaving the App Store.” The warning screen Apple used from 2024, which the Ninth Circuit’s opinion calls a “so-called scare screen”, is not allowed.

Everything above applies to apps on the US storefront only. Section 3.1.1(a) keeps the ban on steering in every other storefront.

What Apple can still control

The Ninth Circuit gave some of Apple’s control back in December 2025. Where a game offers both Apple’s in-app purchase and a web link, Apple may stop the web link from being more prominent than its own button. The court put it this way: Apple “must let developers place their buttons, links, or other calls to action in at least the same fonts, sizes, quantities, and places as Apple’s own.” Anything beyond parity is Apple’s call.

Apple may also apply its general content rules to the wording of the link, the same rules that govern the rest of the app.

What it costs: 0% today, and the fee Apple wants

The same December 2025 ruling reversed the district court’s permanent ban on any commission. Apple may charge a fee “based on the costs that are genuinely and reasonably necessary for its coordination of external links,” plus some payment for intellectual property it uses directly. It may not charge for its security and privacy features. And it may not charge anything yet:

On 13 August 2026 Apple filed its proposal with the district court: 15% as standard, 10% for Video Partner, News Partner and Mini Apps partners and for subscription renewals, and 5% for Small Business Program members. Judge Gonzalez Rogers has not ruled on it, and a ruling is some way off. Under the court’s remand order, Epic has 60 days to answer the proposal once Apple finishes handing over the documents behind it. In their joint report of 25 September 2026 both sides told the judge that the 60 days had not started, because they were still arguing over whose files Apple should search.

Here is what each outcome means for $100 of player spend, before your own payment costs:

The web figures still have to pay for card processing, tax compliance, fraud and chargebacks. Those costs depend on whether you use a merchant of record or run payments yourself, and on your provider’s fee schedule. Two rows decide most business cases. A Small Business Program studio pays 15% in-app and, under Apple’s proposal, would pay 5% on the web, so the web route wins if payment costs stay under 10%. At the 27% rate Apple charged in 2024, the web route only beats standard in-app purchase if total payment costs stay under 3%.

Where the case stands

The entries up to April 2025 follow the Ninth Circuit’s account of the case in its December 2025 opinion.

What the Supreme Court case could change

The Court agreed to decide one question: whether a judge may hold a company in contempt for breaking the “spirit” of an injunction when the injunction does not mention the conduct in question. It declined a second question about whether the relief should cover only Epic.

Nine amicus briefs were filed by 21 September 2026, one of them from the United States. The government formally backs neither side, but it told the Court to reverse part of the judgment and affirm part. In its view the 2021 injunction barred Apple from prohibiting links, not from charging on the purchases they lead to, so the 27% commission was not clearly contempt. Apple’s rule allowing only “plain buttons” was clear contempt, because the injunction names both buttons and links and the courts found a plain button indistinguishable from a link. The government asked the Court to send Apple’s other link restrictions back to the lower courts.

If Apple wins, the April 2025 contempt order and the remedies that came with it could fall. The original 2021 injunction would still stand, and it still requires Apple to let US apps link to other ways to pay. Apple’s own response to that injunction in 2024 was the 27% link commission, which is why the table above includes a 27% row. The government’s brief makes that row more than a theoretical case. If Epic wins, the district court sets a cost-based fee and the case over the amount continues.

As of 5 October 2026 argument has not been scheduled, and Epic’s brief is due on 13 November. Our own reading of the Court’s usual calendar, not anything the Court has said, is that a case granted in June is argued the following term, which would put a decision in the first half of 2027 at the earliest.

Spending web currency on iOS, in any country

Guideline 3.1.3(b) is separate from the US ruling and applies worldwide. It lets a multiplatform game honor purchases made elsewhere:

So a player in Germany can buy gems on your web shop and spend them in the iOS game, provided the same gems are on sale through in-app purchase. What the game cannot do outside the US is point the player to the web shop from inside the app, unless a regional rule allows it. Studios reach those players by email, social channels, community pages and PC or console versions of the game instead.

What studios are doing

Epic brought Fortnite back to the US App Store on 20 May 2025 and offered 20% back in Epic Rewards to players who paid through Epic. Tim Sweeney told The Verge in June 2025 that about 40% of US iOS players had chosen Epic’s payment option over Apple’s. That is a share of players, not of revenue. Listed mobile publishers report the same direction of travel: Playtika put its direct-to-consumer share at 39.3% of revenue in Q2 2026, up from 25.3% a year earlier. The D2C share tracker collects the figures from each earnings season.

Checklist for a US link-out

1. Confirm your provider supports logged-in deep links from the game into a specific offer.
2. Match Apple’s placement and size for your web button. Parity is the limit Apple may enforce.
3. Decide the web incentive. Bonus currency costs you nothing in cash; a lower price cuts margin on every sale.
4. Model your economics at 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 27% before you commit the roadmap to web-first pricing.
5. Keep the link to US-storefront players only. Showing it to players on other storefronts breaks guideline 3.1.1(a).