Microsoft will give developers more money from selling apps on the Microsoft Store

While Apple and Google have made it easy enough to attract developers to their platforms, Microsoft has not yet found a successful formula. Windows Phone suffered from a lack of applications, which eventually led to the disappearance of the platform, and the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 is still quite "empty" compared to Mac AppStore, iOS AppStore and Google Play . The new strategy of the company is to give more money to developers.

While most digital stores work with 70% of the revenue paid to the developer and 30% for the platform owner, the new Windows Store rules will bring 95% of the money directly to those selling apps. Since Microsoft also has multiple platforms, these rules will only apply to apps, not games.

Microsoft Windows Store 10, Windows Mixed Reality, Windows Phone, and Surface Hub customers will only cede 5% of their proceeds to Microsoft, while game developers still obey the old rules. So, the Xbox Live platform is not affected by these changes.

However, Microsoft specifies that applications that are promoted through Microsoft Store will be subject to more specific rules. For these, the developer keeps "only" 85%, while Microsoft holds the remaining 15% of the proceeds. A similar situation can be found in Apple and Google stores, but only in the case of annual subscriptions (85% / 15%).

The announcement was made under the BUILD annual convention, which takes place this week. This monetization plan will take effect sometime around the end of the year and will cover both new and existing applications.