Building a marketplace in 2026: model, payments, KYC and MVP budget
10 min read
Key takeaways
- Choose the model before designing the screens: it determines the paywall, the payment flow and the store commission.
- Goods or services consumed outside the app do not go through in-app purchase, and therefore not through Apple's commission.
- In 2026, the real commission ranges from 10% to 30% depending on the platform, the region, your revenue and the type of purchase.
- Place the paywall after the first value the user feels, and test prices on cohorts of new users.
In many of the briefs we receive, the business model fits on one line: "we'll add ads" or "there will be a premium subscription". Then forty screens get designed, and the question comes back three weeks before launch.
That is too late. The revenue model decides where the paywall goes, which payment system you use, what commission Apple and Google take, and what has to be built on the server side. It is chosen at scoping, at the same time as the scope.
The seven models, and what they require
| Model | How the app earns | When it works | The trap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paid app | A one-off price at download | Niche tool for an audience that already knows what it is buying | No trial possible, few downloads |
| In-app purchases | Content, credits or options sold individually | Games, content packs, generation credits | Irregular revenue, hard to forecast |
| Subscription | A recurring payment | Value that renews: content, a service, a tool used every week | You have to prove the value at every renewal |
| Freemium | A free base, a premium tier | Frequent use, large user volume | Drawing the line in the wrong place |
| Advertising | Revenue per impression or per click | Very large volume, short and repeated sessions | Consent, degraded experience |
| Commission | A percentage on each transaction | Marketplace, booking, matching | Building supply and demand before earning a penny |
| B2B licence | A company pays per user or a flat fee | Business tool, enterprise app | Long sales cycle, the app is only a channel |
The paid app has almost disappeared from the consumer market. It remains defensible for a very targeted professional tool, and even then: a subscription with a free trial gives a hesitant visitor time to judge for themselves.
Advertising is the model most often announced and least often profitable for a first version. It needs a volume that few apps reach in their first year, and it requires two consents: GDPR consent in Europe, and App Tracking Transparency on iOS, without which the device's advertising identifier cannot be accessed. Keep it for later, or for a free content app with a very large audience.
How to choose: three questions
1. Who pays? The end user, a company, an advertiser or a third-party seller. If the answer is "a company", you are doing B2B, and the app is usually free on the stores: the contract is signed elsewhere.
2. How often is the value renewed? An app used every day can carry a subscription. An app opened three times a year cannot; it belongs to one-off purchases or commission. Apple states it in black and white in its rules: a subscription must provide ongoing value, and its period must last at least seven days.
3. Is what you sell consumed inside the app or outside it? This is the question that weighs most on the margin, and it deserves its own section.
Inside or outside the app: the line that decides the commission
Apple's rules distinguish two worlds.
- Goods and services consumed outside the app (a delivered product, a ride, a hotel night, an appointment) must be paid for by a method other than in-app purchase: bank card, Apple Pay, a payment provider. Apple takes no commission. You only pay your provider's fees.
- Digital content and features (unlocking an option, a premium subscription, credits, content) must go through in-app purchase, with commission.
Between the two, person-to-person services have a precise rule: a real-time one-to-one service (private lesson, consultation, coaching) can be paid outside in-app purchase, but a "one-to-few" or "one-to-many" service must use in-app purchase. An online group class is therefore subject to the commission, one-to-one coaching is not. Our article on gym and coach apps covers this case, which catches out many projects.
The practical consequence: a marketplace for physical services keeps its entire commission, minus payment fees. A digital content app shares every sale with Apple and Google. At equal revenue, the two models have very different margins.
This is one of the reasons commission is a solid model on mobile for matching services. If that is your case, our guide to building a marketplace covers payments, seller KYC and the MVP budget.
What Apple and Google take in November 2026
Both stores have changed their terms several times over the past two years, and rates now vary by region. Here is what their official pages state at the date of this article.
Apple, outside the European Union. The standard commission is 30%: during the first year of a subscription, you receive 70% of the price excluding taxes. After one year of paid service by the same subscriber, you receive 85%. The Small Business Program brings the commission down to 15% on paid apps and in-app purchases, from day one, for developers who earned no more than one million dollars in net proceeds in the previous calendar year. You have to enrol, and associated accounts count towards the threshold. If you exceed one million during the year, the standard rate applies to subsequent sales.
Apple, in the European Union. Since 1 October 2026, Apple has applied unified terms for the EU. With Apple's in-app purchase, the standard commission is 26%, and 15% for Small Business Program members and for subscriptions after their first year. With your own payment provider inside the app, it becomes 20% (10% in the same cases). Out-of-app offers with an outbound link carry their own store services commission, of 15% or 10%, on purchases made within seven days of the tap. A choice of payment option commits you for twelve months.
Apple, in the United States. On the US storefront, the rules now allow buttons and links that send users to external payment, without prior authorisation.
Google Play, in the EEA, the UK and the US. A new fee schedule has applied since 30 June 2026 (30 September 2026 in Australia and Japan). The service fee is 10% on the first million dollars of annual earnings. Beyond that, subscriptions stay at 10%, other purchases are at 20% for users who installed the app after the switchover date and 25% for older installs. A 5% billing fee is added when the purchase goes through Google Play Billing. Google also allows your own payment system and sending users to your website.
Google Play, in the rest of the world. The previous schedule remains in place until the global rollout, planned by September 2027: 15% on the first million dollars for developers enrolled in the 15% tier, 30% above that, and 15% on subscriptions regardless of revenue.
15%Apple commission in the Small Business Program, under one million dollars in net proceeds a year
10%Google Play service fee on the first million dollars (EEA, UK, US), plus a 5% billing fee through Google Play Billing
7 daysMinimum length of a subscription period at Apple
Two practical tips. Enrol in the Small Business Program before the first sale, not after. And do not build a business plan on an "average" rate: model your margin by platform and by region, with your own assumptions about the iOS / Android split.
The consequences for the product
Where to place the paywall
The rule we apply: the paywall comes after the first value the user feels, not before. A user who has not yet got anything does not pay; they uninstall.
In practice, two moments are often combined. An offer shown at the end of onboarding, which can be dismissed, then a block at the precise moment the user wants a premium feature. The second lands exactly when the need is there. Our article on mobile onboarding and retention explains how to build those first screens.
Apple also requires clarity: before asking for a subscription, you must describe what the user gets for the price. "Premium" is not enough; "access to every programme and personalised tracking" is.
The free trial
Apple offers three types of introductory offer: the free trial, a reduced price paid each period for a set duration, and a reduced price paid up front. A user can only benefit from one per subscription group.
Set the trial length to the time it takes to get a first concrete result: a few days for a daily tool, longer for a fitness programme. A trial that is too long delays revenue; one that is too short asks for payment before the value is visible. Note also that, at Apple, free trial days do not count towards the year of paid service that lowers the commission.
Testing prices
The launch price is a hypothesis, not a decision. Test it.
- On Google Play, the Play Console offers price experiments on in-app products: you choose products, markets and price points, and the tool tracks revenue and the share of buyers.
- At Apple, the subscriptions page does not mention a price-testing tool. You work in cohorts: Apple lets you keep existing subscribers at their price while raising the price for new ones, and only one price change can be scheduled at a time per territory. An increase triggers notifications to subscribers, and some require their explicit consent.
Offer a monthly and an annual subscription from the start. The annual plan collects revenue up front and limits the opportunities to cancel; the monthly plan reassures those who hesitate.
What it means technically
A subscription is not a "pay" button. You have to handle the stores' server notifications, renewals, refunds, access rights shared between iOS, Android and sometimes the web, and the case of the user who paid on one device and signs in on another. On an MVP of 30 to 60 person-days, this is not a marginal line in the quote. If you build in React Native or Flutter, this work is done once for both platforms, which is part of the 30 to 40% saving of cross-platform development.
The model has to pay for the app
Do the maths before writing code. According to La Fabrique du Net, an app built by an agency costs a median of €30,000, and an MVP around €15,000. Maintenance then represents 15 to 20% of the initial cost every year. On a €30,000 app, you therefore need to generate €4,500 to €6,000 net per year just to maintain it, after store commission and payment fees.
If your model cannot credibly cover that amount with your audience assumptions, change the model, the scope or the target before development starts. Our article on the cost of a mobile app details the budget tiers.
Our recommendations, by type of project
- Consumer app used every day: freemium and subscription, with the annual plan put forward and a free trial matched to the time to first value.
- Physical service, booking or matching: commission, card payment outside in-app purchase. No store commission on transactions.
- E-commerce: the app sells physical goods, so outside in-app purchase; the real question is whether it earns more than a mobile website, which we cover in e-commerce app or mobile website.
- Business tool: a B2B licence sold directly to the company, a free app on the stores. Apple allows access to subscriptions bought by the organisation for its employees; sales to individuals must go through in-app purchase.
- Free content with a very large audience: advertising, possibly complemented by an ad-free subscription.
One last piece of advice: do not stack three models in the first version. A subscription, one-off purchases and advertising at the same time blur the message and multiply the technical work. Launch one model, measure, add the second when the figures justify it.
Going further: our mobile app development page explains how we scope the business model together with the feature scope, before the first mock-up.
Sources
- Apple Developer: App Store Small Business Program
- Apple Developer: Auto-renewable subscriptions
- Apple Developer: DMA and apps in the European Union
- Apple Developer: App Review Guidelines, section 3.1 Payments
- Apple Developer: User privacy and data use (App Tracking Transparency)
- Play Console Help: Service fees
- Android Developers Blog: A new era for choice and openness (March 2026)
- MacRumors: Google lowering Play Store fees and allowing alternative payments worldwide (June 2026)
- Android Developers Blog: Price experiments in Play Console
- La Fabrique du Net: mobile app agency rates (November 2026, in French)
