Apple discloses ad splits but not the News+ payout formula

The revenue mechanism

Apple News+ is a single subscription, priced at $12.99 a month after a free trial as retrieved 16 September 2026, that bundles reading access to more than 500 magazines, newspapers and digital publishers into one payment, rather than each publisher setting and collecting its own price. That differs from a publisher's own paywall, where a reader pays that publisher directly. Apple's developer site separately documents two narrower, publisher-specific mechanisms: advertising sold inside a publisher's own Apple News channel, and a publisher's own in-app subscription sold through the News Partner Program.

What the documents show

Apple's own developer page states publishers keep '100%' of revenue from ads they sell and '70%' from ads Apple sells, managed through Apple's Workbench tool. The News Partner Program page states qualifying publishers get 'a commission rate of 15%' on their own in-app purchase subscriptions, meaning Apple's cut is 15% and the publisher keeps the remainder, conditioned on maintaining an Apple News channel in Australia, Canada, the US or UK, or an RSS feed elsewhere, and on the app's primary purpose being original news content sold through Apple's in-app purchase system. Neither developer page states a payment formula for the Apple News+ subscription pool itself.

The assumptions exposed

A publisher who reads the 100%/70% advertising split or the 15% subscription commission could reasonably assume similar transparency covers Apple News+; on the evidence of the two developer pages checked here, it does not. The 15% figure is Apple's commission on a publisher's own in-app subscription product, a different revenue line from the shared News+ bundle a reader pays for once and Apple then presumably allocates across many publishers; treating the two as one mechanism overstates what is publicly documented. Eligibility for the preferential 15% rate also depends on active conditions, a qualifying channel or feed and a news-first app, that a publisher must confirm rather than assume from having any Apple News presence at all.

What to check before you rely on it

As an editorial checklist: read the specific in-app purchase commission terms in the addendum referenced by the News Partner Program rather than assuming one Apple-wide rate applies, confirm whether a given title actually participates in Apple News+ versus running its own separate in-app subscription, and do not use the advertising split as a proxy for how the News+ pool is divided, since Apple's own documentation keeps the two separate.

• Does my channel meet the News Partner Program's country or RSS-feed requirement today?
• Am I being paid through Apple News+ participation, the News Partner Program, or Apple News advertising, and do I know which?
• Has Apple published any update to these percentages since 16 September 2026?

Apple documents some of its own revenue splits precisely. Where it has not published a figure, this entry does not supply one on its behalf.