In-game purchases
Mobile
Revenue
The true cost of Google's Level Up: What the fee table doesn't show
March 16, 2026•7 min
If Android is a big part of your business, Google’s latest Play update has probably caught your attention. On the surface, it looks like good news. Fees are coming down, and the messaging is all about choice and openness. But once you get into the details, you can see the tradeoffs.
The update introduces a new fee structure, along with programs and requirements that shape how you build, how you monetize, and how tied you become to the Google ecosystem over time. After going through the details, here’s how I’m thinking about it. The fee table matters, but the real tradeoffs show up in the add-ons, requirements, and long-term strings attached.
The good news is you don’t have to treat this like an all-or-nothing decision. Let’s break down what actually changed, where the real costs tend to show up, and the questions worth asking before you opt into anything.
What the fee table doesn’t show
Before you decide what to opt into, it helps to look at what changes in practice. For most publishers, it comes down to three things. 1. The bigger play is long-term lock-in Payments are only part of what’s going on here. The bigger shift is around loyalty, discovery, and who controls the long-term relationship. If loyalty mechanics and re-engagement surfaces are owned by the platform, they tend to drive loyalty to the platform first. That can boost performance in the short term, but it also means the publisher is investing in systems they do not fully control. Over time, that affects data ownership, player relationships, and how much leverage a publisher has when negotiating future changes. That’s also why link-outs matter, especially if fees can follow a player after they click out. If platforms can charge for transactions that happen off-platform within a defined window, then “going direct” inside a mobile ecosystem becomes less about a single decision and more about maintaining optionality and negotiating power. 2. Level Up is a roadmap decision as much as a pricing decision The most attractive rates sit behind Games Level Up and related programs, and the point of those programs is a deeper in-game technical integration than Google has ever had prior. The Level Up requirements, as described internally, read like a classic lock-in strategy. To qualify, publishers are expected to integrate deeper into Google’s services and surfaces. That includes Play Games Sidekick integration, cloud saves through Google infrastructure, achievements through Play Games Services, and cross-device support. There are also incentives tied to visibility and engagement, such as Play Points boosters and quests, as well as re-engagement surfaces like the “You” tab. Another tradeoff is data. The more your engagement and loyalty features run through Google-owned services, the more insight and control sit with Google rather than the publisher. Whether you like that model or not, it’s important to name what it does in practice. It turns a fee decision into a product roadmap decision. It also increases switching friction over time. If player progress, rewards, and engagement loops become more tied to platform services, moving players later becomes harder, and that friction is often felt most strongly at the player level. So it helps to evaluate Level Up the way you would any major platform dependency, asking what it requires from your team over the next 6 to 12 months, what ongoing work it creates, and how hard it is to unwind if the requirements change. 3. The effective rate is what matters, not the top-line number A lower fee on paper doesn’t automatically mean lower total cost. In practice, what you pay results from a few stacked layers. Platform fees, billing choices, processing costs, and the internal cost of building and maintaining the flow all add up. Once you include those pieces, the effective rate can land much closer to what teams are used to than the announcement suggests. That’s why it’s worth doing the boring but important bit first. Model your effective rate with real assumptions by region and purchase mix, and don’t anchor your strategy to a single number.What publishers should do next
If you're deciding what to do this quarter, it's worth starting with the real math. Model your effective take rate across regions and scenarios, and ensure you're using realistic assumptions for processing costs and the operational overhead for each path. The publishers who navigate this well won't be the ones chasing the lowest fee; they'll be the ones who kept their options open. A lower rate doesn't mean much if the cost is the loss of control over your player relationships. From there, you can treat Level Up like a product decision, not just a pricing one. If the requirements align with where your roadmap is headed anyway, enrolling might make sense. If it pulls you in a direction you don't actually want to go, it's worth pausing to be honest about the engineering lift and the long-term dependency you're taking on. Whatever you test, build in reversibility. Roll out in cohorts, keep exposure controlled, and make sure you have a clean rollback plan, because policies and timelines are still evolving, and you don't want to get stuck in a one-way implementation before the dust settles. One last step is to zoom out a level. Even if Google Play remains your primary distribution channel, it’s worth building a direct channel alongside it. That’s how you keep options open and avoid having to rebuild your strategy every time a platform changes the rules.The update at a glance
To recap the announcement itself, Google’s March 4 update introduced a new fee structure and new programs that affect which terms publishers can qualify for. Fees are now split into a service fee and, in some markets, an additional billing fee if you use Google Play Billing. In the US, UK, and EEA, Google charges a 5% billing fee on top of the Google Play Billing service fee, and the subscription fee drops to 10%. Google is also positioning Games Level Up and the Apps Experience Program as the path to better economics, with a phased regional rollout. Separately, there are opt-in paths for alternative billing inside the app and for linking users out to external purchase pages in certain markets, each with its own requirements and fees.A strategy that keeps you flexible
If Google Play is a major channel for your game, a sensible approach is to keep it that way while building a direct layer alongside it. A direct channel gives you flexibility, a place to run offers and events on your terms, build loyalty that belongs to your game, and learn from your own player data. It also gives you a hedge against platform uncertainty, because D2C lets you stay proactive if and when platform policies shift. When more control sits with the platform, most companies end up in a reactive position, which most teams would rather avoid. A direct channel helps you stay proactive, keep control, and retain ownership of your players. That’s the idea behind our Mobile Web Shop approach. It’s infrastructure for running a direct channel alongside app stores, with global payment coverage and Merchant of Record support so teams don’t have to build the tax and compliance stack just to launch and iterate. Google’s changes are real, and there are opportunities in the new structure. But what matters is the all-in cost, the requirements you take on, and what that locks you into over time. The publishers who do well here usually won’t treat this as a binary choice. They’ll use Google Play where it helps, and they’ll build a direct channel alongside it so they keep control over their economics and player relationships. By Chris Hewish, President, Communication & StrategyFeatured articles
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