Apple has just announced that its iTunes affiliate program will no longer be working for iOS and macOS. This change will go live starting October 1 2018.
Apple’s App Store Affiliate Program allowed individual person, bloggers and YouTubers to link to an app and earn a commission of the sale. Initially, the program was launched to give affiliates 7% of any app purchase but they dropped the cut to 2.5% in April last year. Now there is no commission at all.
Apple says that it doesn’t need that kind of help from bloggers of YouTubers anymore because its App Store is now better and help people discover apps easily. The affiliate program will still be available for music, movies, books, and TV purchases.
“With the launch of the new App Store on both iOS and macOS and their increased methods of app discovery, we will be removing apps from the affiliate program. Starting on October 1st, 2018, commissions for iOS and Mac apps and in-app content will be removed from the program. All other content types (music, movies, books, and TV) remain in the affiliate program,” says Apple.
This news will surely affect a lot of tech bloggers who earn a considerable amount from App Store affiliate program. One of those affected websites include Toucharcade that review iOS games and put affiliate links in their reviews for a substantial chunk of their revenue.
We at Techlomedia also earn a small chunk from Apple’s Affiliate program. After the Ad Blockers took over the advertising revenue, Affiliate programs were the hope to fill that loss. Recently Flipkart put a limit on earning and now Apple is shutting down affiliate program. These changes are making hard for us to keep our publication alive.
