Earlier this year, Google announced a pilot project under which companies can bypass the Google Play billing system and can use their own or third-party payments system. The pilot project, named User Choice Billing, is currently limited to select applications and Spotify is among them.
Spotify and Google have now announced that User Choice Billing is available for the users of the music streaming platform in select markets and could expand to other regions later. The company will continue to include the option of Google Play billing.
Interestingly, Google will still get a cut of all the transactions that happen through the User Choice Billing payment system and not the company’s own Google Play billing. The company is reducing the payment commission by 4 percent, which means those developers using the third-party payments system will be paying either an 11 percent or 26 percent cut to Google.
Even though Google gets a commission for the third-party payments system, Spotify says that the system still represents progress toward greater “platform fairness and expanded payment options.” The streaming giant has termed the deal as fair, but it’s not yet known if Google is offering a special deal to Spotify.
The User Choice Billing pilot project from Google is running in 35 countries, and apart from Spotify, some other applications, including dating app Bumble have joined the program. It is available for applications only and games remain ineligible for the program altogether.
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