B2C · video streaming service

How Netflix grows

1 tactic and 1 figures from 2 interviews.

About Netflix

What it is: Streaming service that left App Store billing; tested App Store vs outside economics.
Business model: subscription

As described in the interviews, not independently verified.

Netflix's tactic

Netflix · B2C · video streaming service

Don't sell in the app at all; sign people up on your own site

Cohost says it does fine without in-app payments

Because content licensing costs mean it cannot absorb app store fees at $9.99 and does not want to raise prices, Netflix does not sell subscriptions through in-app purchase and relies on the traffic it drives itself.

Workedpayments-checkoutweb-to-app

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2024-01-29

Netflix by the numbers

Metric	Value	Context	Said in
commission rate	12–13% approximate	App Store fee level at which selling in the App Store would still be more profitable than selling outside it, per Netflix experiments revealed in the Epic case (RevenueCat experiments pointed the same way)	Sub Club by RevenueCat 2025-07-23 1:56:50

Topics

Web-to-app funnels and web checkout1

Interviews

The Past, Present, and Future of Building on Apple — John Gruber, Daring Fireball · Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2025-07-23
Apple’s Response to the EU’s DMA: What Developers Need to Know · Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2024-01-29