Spotify drops Apples in-app payment system entirely: Heres what it means for users

Spotify has completely dropped the support for Apple’s in-app purchase system. The legacy Spotify Premium subscribers who were paying through the Apple App Store will have to resubscribe to the Premium service using alternative payment systems such as PayPal or a credit card. The existing subscription will work till the end of the current billing cycle. Also Read: Is TikTok Returning to India? Website Goes Live Again, But App Still Missing

Spotify recently notified the affected subscribers through an email that the platform will no longer accept their existing payment method.  Also Read: Elon Musk Says Apple Is Blocking X And Grok From Top App Store Lists: Is It Favouring OpenAI?

“We’re contacting you because when you joined Spotify Premium you used Apple’s billing service to subscribe. Unfortunately, we no longer accept that billing method as a form of payment,” read the email sent by Spotify to the Premium subscribers who used Apple’s in-app purchase system to subscribe. Also Read: Germany Asks Apple, Google To Take Down ChatGPT-Rival DeepSeek: Here's Why

Spotify said that the affected Premium subscribers will automatically move to a free account, which is an ad-supported service at the end of their current billing cycle.

“We recently began notifying a small number of users that a legacy payment method, that their Premium account is attached to, is being deprecated. Users notified by email will automatically move to a Free account from their next billing cycle. Users will then have the option to upgrade to a Premium account by logging into their account at Spotify.com. These actions will help ensure that we can continue to provide a consistent best-in-class subscription experience for all our users,” a Spotify spokesperson said.

Spotify stopped accepting payments from new Premium subscribers through Apple’s in-app purchase system in 2016 as Apple collects up to 30 percent commission on in-app purchases. 

Spotify accused Apple of anti-competitive practices in the EU in 2019. The music streaming platform claimed that the App Store rules were harming competition. 

Spotify also complained about a similar fee from Google’s Play Store, but it reached an agreement with Google last year. 

Under the new agreement, in some markets, Google allows Spotify users to choose how they want to pay. Google still takes a commission from these payments, but it is 4 percent lower than the standard rate.

The change in App Store payments is unlikely not impact many of Spotify’s current Premium subscribers. In 2019, Apple disclosed in a regulatory filing that it had collected subscription fees for 6,80,000 Spotify subscribers, as reported by The Verge via Variety. This is a fraction of Spotify’s 100 million Premium subscribers at that time. 

Spotify’s Q4 earnings report for 2022 shows that the service now has more than 200 million paid subscribers.