As you may already know, Spotify started sending out emails to its customers to stop subscribing to the Premium account through iOS App Store's In-app Purchase mechanism (which costs $12.99) and subscribe using Spotify website (which costs $9.99).
The reason behind this difference is that Apple charges 30% of the purchase price as its noted here. The purchase price of Spotify Premium through App Store is $12.99. But this doesn't make sense to me. 30% of $12.99 is approximately $3.9 so Spotify will be making $9.1 instead of $9.9.
Is the 30% calculated after the developer states its intended price? i.e. Spotify says that it wants to earn $9.99 with each purchase. Apple says fine, I'll charge $12.99, have $3 (which is 30% of $9.99) for myself and you can have the remaining $9.9. (I don't believe this is the case.)
Or Spotify is actually selling its Premium account cheaper through App Store? What I mean is that in order to earn $9.99 per purchase, one should charge approximately $14.28.
Can someone please clarify the situation? Thanks.
Best Answer
It's a simple marketing ploy.
Apple Music is $9.99 a month
Spotify is $12.99 a month, through the Apple Store.
Spotify want to match Apple's price, but don't want to cut their revenue to 70% of $9.99, so they're offering you $9.99 direct, rather than $12.99 through Apple.
That means for every person who changes to the direct method, Spotify actually receive more than they used to through Apple.