iOS Payments Just Blew Wide Open - But Who’s Handling Your Finance Ops Now?

We did the math: the top ten grossing publishers on iOS could add north of $1.5 billion cumulatively to their yearly margins from U.S. players (more on that below).

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That’s the opportunity the U.S. ruling against Apple has created. With a little bit of code and integration in just a few hours, publishers can ditch Apple’s pricey payment infrastructure and set up web payments to power their in-game purchases - and massively scale their margins.

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But…and there’s a big but: success depends on the systems behind the link. Apple handles sales tax, chargebacks, fraud, refunds, and reporting in the background. If you're using an external payment link instead, all of this falls on you.

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This guide breaks down what it takes to make that shift work - operationally, legally, and at scale - based on our expertise working with some of the world’s leading mobile game publishers.

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TL;DR: Whether you’re experimenting with payment links for U.S. users or rolling out a full direct-to-consumer strategy, you’ll need to either build an in-house team of finance specialists - or outsource to a Merchant of Record [hey 👋].

First the fun stuff

We put this table together to give you a glimpse of the revenue upside the new legislations against Apple offer developers for U.S. players. We used data from AppMagic to uncover the top 10 publisher’s total payouts from American iOS users’ IAPs in 2024 - meaning what they took home after Apple’s cut. We then did a little reverse engineering - how much would they add to their bottom line if they used external payment links, instead of Apple’s checkout - and instead paid 5% instead of 30%?

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The answer? $1.6 billion.

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But setting up external payment links offers publishers more than this:

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• Reinvest more aggressively in growth: User acquisition, creator partnerships, loyalty campaigns, live operations, etc.

• Pricing flexibility: Apple’s fixed tiers and restrictions (for instance on promo codes or personalized discounts) are gone. That means you can run flash sales, VIP offers, or special discounts all on your own terms.

• Checkout flexibility: Now you can offer different user groups different checkout options based on data from your apps.

• Faster cash flow. It can take up to 75 days to actually see the money from IAPs processed by Apple. MORs [hey 👋] typically send you your money within 15 to 40 days of the transaction.

• Strengthen relationships with players: If you direct players to buy from your web store, you can collect emails, apply coupons, or add them to a retargeting campaign.

But What Goes On Behind The Scenes?

Without Apple processing your IAP payments for U.S. players, you are now responsible for: 

Sales Tax Compliance

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The U.S. doesn’t have a centralized sales tax system. Instead, each state, and in some cases, each city or district, sets its own rules.

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More than 30 states currently tax digital goods. Most require registration if you exceed either $100,000 in revenue or 200 transactions annually within the state. That means publishers must:

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• Monitor where players are located and track nexus thresholds
  
  
• Register with state tax authorities (potentially dozens of times)
  
  
• Accurately calculate and display local sales tax at checkout
  
  
• Generate compliant receipts and store records for audit purposes
  
  
• File monthly or quarterly tax returns—even if no tax was collected
  
  

For example, a $10 web store purchase from a player in Dallas could include:

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• 6.25% Texas state tax
• 1% city tax
• 1% for a special transit district 

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That’s $0.85 of tax that must be properly collected, reported, and remitted.

Chargebacks & Support

When a player disputes a purchase made on the App Store, Apple handles it. When the transaction happens through your payment link or web store, you’re now responsible for resolving the issue.

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That includes:

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• Responding to chargebacks with evidence (e.g. transaction records, device IDs, user actions)
  
  
• Managing refund policies and making decisions on edge cases
  
  
• Preventing chargeback abuse without punishing honest players
  
  
• Monitoring dispute rates to stay below PSP thresholds (typically 1%)
  
  

Chargebacks aren’t just annoying - they’re operational risk. We have an entire team fighting on behalf of our publisher partners - without them, a single spike in chargebacks could result in frozen funds, higher processing fees, or even terminated payment accounts.

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Beyond disputes, players expect responsive billing support. That means resolving issues like double charges, expired cards, and missing receipts quickly and professionally. We’ve built our systems around these expectations (check out our Help Center) because we know that top tier publishers need top tier support for their players.

Administration & Reporting

This is the area most teams underestimate. When you go direct, you’re no longer just a game publisher - you’re operating a global commerce stack.

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You’ll need to:

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• Register legal entities in states where you meet nexus
  
  
• Maintain logins, certificates, and compliance docs for every jurisdiction
  
  
• Reconcile payments across PSPs, currencies, discounts, and refund flows
  
  
• Generate detailed reports for tax filing and internal accounting
  
  
• Submit returns on strict monthly or quarterly deadlines—each with its own format and rules
  
  

Even teams with strong analytics and ops support often find this overwhelming at scale. We’ve seen publishers try to stitch it together with spreadsheets. It works…until it doesn’t. And by then, you’re facing penalties or delays.

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We take full control and responsibility across every step of this process: from entity setup to data exports, state-level filings, and audit readiness. This lets publishers stay focused on what they do best - running great games - without being burdened by payment ops.

The Choice

You have two main options:

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1. Use a Payment Service Provider (PSP) like Stripe, and build the rest in-house.

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Beyond fees, there’s the question of setup and maintenance. To run Stripe well, you’ll likely need:

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• A payments ops team (4–7 people): $200K–$400K/year
• A Stripe technical account manager: $65K/year
• Registration and legal entities in 15+ countries

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2. Work with a Merchant of Record (MoR) like Appcharge, who handles it all for you.

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Appcharge gives you all the same global reach and control as Stripe - with none of that overhead. You get the upside of direct payments without becoming a payments company.

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If you want to understand the difference between building your own stack with just a PSP vs. working with a Merchant of Record, read our MoR vs. PSP comparison guide.

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Getting This Right Matters

The ability to link out from your iOS app is a real breakthrough. But success depends on what happens after the click.

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This is about more than just a payment link - it’s about the infrastructure behind it. Tax compliance, dispute management, and financial reporting are core parts of making direct-to-player monetization work.

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If you’re going to take advantage of this opportunity, you need to be operationally ready. That means building these systems yourself or working with partners who live and breathe this space.

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At Appcharge, we do this every day for the world’s leading games. Feel free to get in touch and we'd be happy to discuss how we can help.

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