Later this month, Meta will pass along Apple’s 30% service charge to advertisers who pay to boost the visibility of their posts on its social networks.
Starting later this month, when an advertiser uses the Facebook or Instagram iOS app to Boost a post, they will be billed through Apple, which retains a 30% service charge on the total ad payment, before any applicable taxes. This service charge is retained by Apple, not Meta.
To avoid the additional charge, Facebook encouraged advertisers to bypass Apple’s in-app purchase fees by logging into Facebook and Instagram through their mobile or desktop websites.
“We are required to either comply with Apple’s guidelines, or remove boosted posts from our apps,” Meta said.
“We do not want to remove the ability to boost posts.”
Boosted posts are a low-barrier-to-entry advertising product that businesses can use to quickly promote a piece of content without needing to set up a full campaign in Ads Manager.
This feature is particularly used by small businesses, who may use boosted posts as their only form of advertising across Facebook and Instagram.
“We have always required that purchases of digital goods and services within apps must use In-App Purchase,” Apple spokesperson Adam Dema said in an emailed statement.
“Boosting, which allows an individual or organization to pay to increase the reach of a post or profile, is a digital service — so of course In-App Purchase is required.”
Meta did not immediately respond to questions about how it chose to handle the increased costs for boosted posts.
Meta’s push against Apple’s in-app purchase fees comes just a couple of weeks after the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said a plan by Apple to comply with EU regulations promoting more competition would make little difference to his approach.
facebook culd quite easily absorb the costs but have deliberately chosen no to do so.
