How to Decide Whether Your App's Payments Should Move to the Web After Japan's Smartphone Act

Since Japan's new smartphone law took full effect, I keep getting the same question: "If we move payments to the web, do we keep everything we now pay Apple?"

The answer is that some companies save real money and some save almost nothing. Once you line up the numbers, the gap is only large for apps that meet a few conditions. What you give up outside the fees, on the other hand, applies to every app.

I design apps and their payment screens, so this is what I look at when a company asks. I am a designer, not a lawyer or an accountant. Check the contract terms in the original documents.

What changed

The law's formal name is the Act on Promotion of Competition for Specified Smartphone Software. According to the Japan Fair Trade Commission, it took full effect on December 18, 2025, and the designated companies are Apple, iTunes K.K. and Google.

Apple announced its Japan changes on December 17, 2025. From iOS 26.2, in Japan you can:

• distribute through app marketplaces other than the App Store
• use a payment method other than Apple In-App Purchase inside the app
• link from the app to a purchase page on your own website

Google announced on the same day that it was extending alternative billing to every app selling digital content, plus a new program that lets users choose between Google Play billing and buying on the developer's website. That announcement does not give a fee rate, so the rest of this piece focuses on Apple, whose terms are published.

The fees side by side

Apple's Japan support page lists the rates in a table. Here is the part that matters.

The 15% on web links is called the store services commission, and it only applies to purchases made within 7 days of the link tap.

Paying on the web also means a card fee. Stripe's standard rate for domestic cards in Japan, for example, is 3.6%. With that, the math looks like this:

• Standard tier: 26% with In-App Purchase, about 18.6% with a web link. A gap of roughly 7 points.
• Small Business Program tier: 15% with In-App Purchase, about 13.6% with a web link. A gap of a little over 1 point.

On a 1,000 yen monthly subscription, the standard tier keeps about 70 yen more per payment. In the Small Business Program tier, it is a little over 10 yen.

So "moving to the web" means something very different from one company to the next.

The costs that are not in the table

If you decide on fees alone, you will regret it. Apple's announcement and support page also spell out what comes with using the web or another payment method.

First, refunds. Apple states that it cannot issue refunds for transactions made outside its payment system. Questions, refunds and fraud all land with your own support team. For a company with no support setup, this is the heaviest item.

Second, paperwork. If you use another payment method inside the app, collecting and paying the tax on those sales becomes your job, and you have to send Apple a report of those transactions every month, within 15 days of the month's end. When you show another payment method in the app, you also have to show In-App Purchase on the same screen.

Third, age. Users under 13 cannot be shown web links for purchases, and neither can apps in the Kids category. Users under 18 need a parental gate before buying.

Fourth, and least visible, the purchase rate. For most users, In-App Purchase is a single tap. Moving to the web adds a browser, a login and a card number. If you gain 7 points on fees but fewer people finish buying, revenue goes down. No document gives you this number. You have to measure it yourself.

Apps that should move payments to the web

The conditions line up for apps like these:

• not in the Small Business Program, so they pay the standard 21% tier
• already running a web service with accounts and card payments
• used mostly by adults, often on a PC as well
• higher priced, so people compare carefully before buying

Business SaaS and services where the web is the product and the app is a window into it usually fit here. Users already log in on the web, so the extra steps hardly feel like extra steps.

Apps that should leave payments alone

If these apply, I see little reason to hurry:

• in the Small Business Program, with a gap of a little over 1 point
• most revenue comes from subscription renewals after the first year
• many teenage users, or the app is for children
• mostly cheap one time purchases or items people buy on impulse
• nobody to handle refund and payment questions

If you move, run both and measure

Moving does not mean dropping In-App Purchase. The safe start is to offer both for a few weeks and measure which one people pick and which one they finish.

The design detail that matters most is the return trip. If someone pays on the web and the app still shows them as a free user, support requests pile up fast. Purchases have to show up in the app right away, and users have to be logged in to the same account on the web. Both come before any work on the look of the purchase page.

At the first meeting

If you are reviewing how your app charges, tell me three things at the first meeting: how revenue splits between new purchases and renewals after year one, whether you are in the Small Business Program, and whether you already have accounts and payments on the web.

With those three, we can usually work out on the spot whether moving is worth it.