In-App Purchase vs Web Checkout: What Apple and Google Allow in the US, Canada and Japan

The starting rule has not changed. Apple's App Review Guideline 3.1.1 says that if you unlock features or content inside your app, such as subscriptions, premium content or a full version, you must offer in-app purchase. What has changed is whether the app may also tell people about a cheaper or more flexible way to pay on your website, and what the store charges when they do.

The answer is decided by the storefront of each user, not by where your company is incorporated. A Canadian company whose app is downloaded from the US App Store follows the US rules for those users, and the Canadian rules for its users in Canada. That is why a single on/off decision rarely fits; most subscription apps that sell in more than one country end up with different purchase screens per storefront.

Some apps were never required to use in-app purchase. Under guideline 3.1.3, physical goods and services consumed outside the app must use another payment method such as Apple Pay or a card form, and real-time one-to-one services such as tutoring or medical consultations may use one. Reader apps for magazines, books, music and video can apply for an entitlement to link to account creation on their website. If your product falls in one of these groups, the rest of this article matters less.

Apple's current guidelines say its link entitlements are not required for developers to include buttons, external links or other calls to action in their United States storefront apps. In-app purchase must still be available for digital unlocks; the link is an additional option, not a replacement.

The fee question comes from the Epic Games v. Apple litigation. In its December 11, 2025 opinion, the Ninth Circuit described how Apple had first responded to the injunction: a 27% commission on purchases made within seven days of following a link, calculated as its 30% in-app purchase commission minus a 3% cost-of-payments discount. The court agreed this had a prohibitive effect, because developers would also pay more than 3% to process the payment themselves. It held that Apple may eventually charge a commission based on the costs genuinely and reasonably necessary to coordinate external links, plus some compensation for intellectual property directly used, but no commission at all until the district court approves a fee.

Two dates matter for planning. The Supreme Court granted Apple's petition on June 30, 2026, limited to one question, and set argument for January 11, 2027. On August 13, 2026, Justice Kagan denied Apple's application to pause the district court proceedings, so the fee-setting process continues in parallel. Treat today's zero-commission US link-out as a window that may narrow, and build so the fee can change without a new app release.

Google runs a separate external content links program for users in the United States and its territories, and developers based elsewhere can enroll to serve US users. Its service fee applies to purchases completed within 24 hours of following an external link: 10% for auto-renewing subscriptions and 20% for other digital purchases at standard rates, with 10% on the first US$1M of annual earnings. If a link leads to an app install instead, a per-install fee applies (US$2.85 for apps and US$3.65 for games, subject to adjustment). Under Google's July 22, 2026 update, reporting and payment began on October 1, 2026. Apps must tell users about the destination before linking out and must offer customer support, a dispute process and refunds.

Japan's Mobile Software Competition Act (MSCA) led Apple to introduce new options in iOS 26.2. For users on the Japanese storefront, an app can now sell digital goods in three ways, each with its own charge:

Apple's guideline 3.1.1(a) says that in all storefronts other than the United States, and outside the specific regions where a link entitlement is offered, apps and their metadata may not include buttons, external links or other calls to action that direct customers to purchase mechanisms other than in-app purchase. Canada is one of those storefronts. What you can still do is communicate with your existing customers outside the app, for example by email, about other ways to pay; guideline 3.1.3 states this explicitly.

On Google Play, the new fee structure and expanded billing choice reached the US on June 30, 2026 and Japan on September 30, 2026. Google lists September 30, 2027 for the rest of the world, which includes Canada. Until then, a Canadian product team should plan on store billing for Canadian users on both platforms.

The fee gap is only half the comparison. You take on card processing, sales tax or GST/HST handling, refunds, failed-payment recovery and customer support that the store used to cover. And some people who tap the link will not finish paying on a web page. The Ninth Circuit opinion quotes Apple's own internal analysis: when a link-out happens there will be some "breakage", customers who drop off because the flow is less seamless than in-app purchase. Apple calculated that if breakage passed a certain point, developers would lose more by linking out than they saved.

That is the right model for your own decision. For each storefront, compare revenue per paywall view, not the commission rate: in-app conversion multiplied by price minus store fees, against web conversion multiplied by price minus processing, tax tooling and any store fee on linked sales. The only reliable conversion numbers are your own, so run the web option as a measured experiment rather than a full switch.

Most of the rules in this article changed in the last two years, and more decisions are pending. The engineering goal is to make the purchase path a configuration choice per storefront, not a code path baked into a release. This is the checklist we apply when designing subscription billing.