[HN Gopher] Costs of running a macOS app studio business
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Costs of running a macOS app studio business
Author : alin23
Score : 267 points
Date : 2023-12-24 19:31 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (notes.alinpanaitiu.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (notes.alinpanaitiu.com)
| trollied wrote:
| The net revenue he gets is actually reasonable.
| jurgenkesker wrote:
| Yes, here in The Netherlands I keep 60% of such income,
| compared to his 90% after tax.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Yeah. Start a BV (privately owned company) here and the tax
| calculation is similar, if not worse, in complexity and you
| get to hand over ~40% of your money... in a country with
| vastly higher CoL
| Jhsto wrote:
| It should be noted that for Europeans other alternatives
| exist, as you can freely shop any EU country to incorporate
| a business. Many of my tech friends have set a company in
| Estonia for tax planning once they have hit a certain
| revenue (and 0% corporate income tax).
| jeduan wrote:
| Yeah. Was surprised to see him complain about a 15% business /
| income tax.
| m_a_g wrote:
| As a person from a country similar to Romania, I can
| empathize with him. When you lose trust in the state and how
| they spend your money, even a 1% tax is too much.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I think the countries where you actually get your money's
| worth when it comes to taxes is very small, and even then,
| it's not clear whether it's due to good policy or merely
| luck and riding off previous successes that are being
| eroded by short-sightedness, stupidity/incompetence or
| corruption (also known as "lobbying" in the West).
| alin23 wrote:
| The problem for me is not having to pay that tax. The problem
| is that we as Romanian citizens never see anything good done
| with them. And that's why I feel the need to complain.
|
| We're out of communism for more than 30 years but the
| mentality of officials has barely changed. People are dying
| in dirty hospitals of infections that they didn't have before
| getting there (see Colectiv 2015). Analphabetism is higher
| than in previous years. You will choke and get lung pain if
| you want to take a walk on the street in most villages
| because of the coal being burned by poor people.
|
| Education and healthcare are in dire need of money, and we're
| always on a tight budget and raising taxes.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Btw, Ceausescu was executed on this very day, December 25,
| thirty-four years ago. I was in the 3rd grade and our very
| distressed primary school teacher told us that _some bad
| people_ in Romania have overthrown the Communist Party
| rule! That was the first political information session I
| ever was put into, and, luckily, there weren 't much more
| of them later due to the dissolution of the USSR.
| debugnik wrote:
| > see Colectiv 2015
|
| > At least 13 of the victims that died in hospitals were
| killed by bacteria, probably because the disinfectant used
| was diluted by the manufacturer to save money.
|
| (From Wikipedia.) That's so sad to read, considering they
| had actually survived the fire.
| vinni2 wrote:
| I've never worked as a consultant but is it reasonable to
| assume you always have work (8*21 hours) which pays $120 per
| hour?
| bdcravens wrote:
| No, but estimating being booked 75%+ isn't unreasonable.
| xenospn wrote:
| I do consulting work sometimes - I cap it at 10hr/month and
| charge $250/hr. That's a good way of ensuring random jobs
| don't take over your life. And yes; there's always more work.
| alin23 wrote:
| Not really, that was a wild extrapolation on my part. But I
| did have at least 2 other companies waiting for me to be
| available on other projects, so in my specific case it would
| have been possible to continue working like that for the full
| year.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| To add context, it seems like the CoL of Romania is ~45% cheaper
| than the US [1]. Which seems like would make for a very
| comfortable lifestyle with that income.
|
| [1] https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/united-
| states...
| gumballindie wrote:
| Yeah but people's budgets are not made fully of restaurants and
| groceries. The bulk is made of housing, cars, phones, goods,
| clothes, which cost the same as western europe for the most
| part. In some cases I find food in the UK cheaper. Petrol is
| also comparable. While far from London the real estate market
| in a large city is comparable to say Manchester or similar. I
| doubt people writing apps live in areas where a house costs as
| much as a house in Detroit's rundown areas. So op's expenses
| are likely higher than that stat.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Housing prices are controlled by local supply & demand;
| there's no way housing is going to be remotely comparable
| between let's say the UK and Romania; the majority of
| properties would stay empty forever if they were priced like
| in the UK.
|
| Same thing for most consumer goods - they have a (very low)
| base price and the rest is pure profit margin which is
| adjusted according to the local purchasing power. Consumer
| goods in Romania would be much cheaper than in a Western
| European country; whether by existing manufacturers lowering
| their profit margins to match local purchasing power, or
| other manufacturers managing to fill this gap in the market
| by selling at more affordable prices.
| xenospn wrote:
| Rent in Romania is similar to Western Europe? I thought the
| income levels were very very different.
| IshKebab wrote:
| That seems implausible. I looked it up and the first result
| was:
|
| > A one-room apartment in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Brasov,
| Sibiu or other big cities will cost from EUR350 to EUR500 per
| month
|
| Good luck finding that in Manchester!
| hereonout2 wrote:
| I just found a newly built 7 bedroom villa with pool in
| Bucharest for under EUR500k, not ideal as it's near the
| airport but if anyone could point to an equivalent in the
| Manchester metropolitan area I'd be very interested.
|
| Also found an entire building on Bucharest's second busiest
| street Magheru Blvd for EUR1.4M. Out of my price range
| unfortunately but it does include 12 separate 3 bedroom
| apartments, a floor of offices, and a restaurant, cafe and
| art gallery at street level.
| orenlindsey wrote:
| That's a pretty good job. This may have been answered and I
| didn't see it, but how long did it take to get up to that level?
| alin23 wrote:
| Author here! It's a tricky question to answer. I wrote Lunar v1
| in 2017, and it was fully free for 4 years, but those years
| were essential for the app to mature and get a good following.
|
| In June 2021 I launched Lunar v4 with the new support for Apple
| Silicon and I also added a paid tier. I started making good
| money from the start, most likely because Lunar was already
| "known". I was making about $3k/month back then, which was
| enough for me to not need a full time job anymore.
|
| Getting to $6k was a gradual process since 2021 until now:
| constantly launching free apps, giving more attention to those
| that provided utility to most people, adding paid tiers when I
| had enough to offer over the existing free features.
| spike021 wrote:
| How do you plan what features should be added while the app
| is free, and then which features in the future will go into a
| paid tier?
|
| Last year I worked on a pet project iOS app (which I never
| released unfortunately) and one of my struggles was figuring
| out how I'd portion out the features from free to not-free
| after release. I was thinking at the time of doing what
| you've done, basically releasing as free for a while and then
| adding a paid set of features. It's just difficult to plan
| what should fit there.
| alin23 wrote:
| If I want to build a feature that I know would need a lot
| of work so I'd like to make it paid, I note it down. That's
| it, I just leave it there, and focus on getting the app
| launched as free first.
|
| After the launch, feedback will guide you through what
| noted features to act on, and even add some more.
|
| Launching it as free also gives you time to iron out the
| inevitable edge cases that won't appear in your tests.
| People will have lower expectations, and feedback will
| contain less angry tone, which is usually a big
| demotivator.
|
| The "launch early" phrase you keep reading in maker
| circles, makes a lot of sense for indie devs. It's easiest
| to validate an idea, and get help on the direction of the
| app. Your idea of what the app should be is not always the
| best idea, user feedback can help fine tune that.
|
| However if you have a very specific vision, and "if someone
| pays, good, if no one pays, still good", then disregard
| what I said above. Keep working on your vision, something
| unique might sprout out of that.
|
| EDIT: I realized I might not have answered your actual
| question. Because I always build apps to fix a problem of
| my own, I make free only what's essential for that problem.
| Like what I would do in a script, but with just a bit of
| polish and UI for it to be usable by non tech users as
| well.
|
| That's how Clop launched: first it was a single Swift file
| that checked the clipboard for images in a loop and ran
| pngquant on them. I would run that at the command line.
| Then I packaged it as an app with minimal UI and released
| it as free.
|
| Most of everything else will be paid. That's what happened
| with video and PDF optimization on Clop.
|
| But if it's an improvement on an existing free feature, I
| will add it for free. That's what I did with ignoring
| specific types of images from the clipboard, or detecting
| Universal Clipboard etc.
| usui wrote:
| I have so much respect for people who know what they want and can
| execute on it, despite the financial implications of doing so in
| cases where it carries financial risk. It inspires others to
| clearly know one's self-worth, desires, and agency.
|
| > But I could not fit into the same old Slack chat + Zoom
| meetings + SCRUM + daily report + doing something that you feel
| it has no purpose in the real world for 8 hours a day madness
| that consulting work needs. So I said "no, I'm sorry, I'd like to
| continue building my apps".
| kemenaran wrote:
| Congrats for knowing what's important to you (time and peace of
| mind, from what I read), and acting on it.
|
| I work as a consultant, but for the same reasons: I choose to
| work only a few days a week, take the salary loss, and spend more
| time with my young kids. A time will come where I'll start
| working more, which will also unlock more meaningful work - but
| for now that's a choice I'm happy to make.
| alin23 wrote:
| Thanks! And happy to hear you're doing that!
|
| I also asked for a 3-day work week from my last company when I
| wanted to try and make Lunar paid. It's incredible how much
| your life changes when you're not defined by your job anymore.
|
| Because you spend more time (4 days) doing some other thing
| than your job (3 days), you really start seeing what's actually
| important, and the question "what's your job" no longer has a
| straightforward answer.
| asim wrote:
| This ^^. What we call "work" gets totally redefined in later
| years. That flip makes you realise, you are not your job and
| your job is just a means to an end.
| BubbleRings wrote:
| Thank you for making this post!
| alin23 wrote:
| Thank you for reading it, and glad you liked it ^_^
| orra wrote:
| Wait, why are expenses deducted from profits, as opposed to
| before profits? Is OP doing something wrong, or is Romanian
| corporation tax different from normal?
| alin23 wrote:
| That's a confusion on my part, sorry about that. You are right,
| the expenses are deducted before profits.
|
| In my case, the expenses are so small (<$1k) that they would
| not significantly affect the final tax to be paid, so I just
| left it at the end as an aside.
| w0mbat wrote:
| The Apple app store is a disaster for making a living as an
| indie. People can't find the apps so sales are low, market rate
| prices are also low. The only way to make a living is to rip-off
| users with misleading subscriptions, which I won't do. I made
| much more money writing $20 shareware in the 90s.
|
| That's why I write apps for a corporation now.
| gumballindie wrote:
| That's by design. You are meant to work for a corporation.
| Capitalism is nearly dead due to this - corporation flooding
| the market, drowning indie enterprise, and clogging money. We
| need a return to capitalism and do away with guilded
| corporatism.
| plagiarist wrote:
| The specific case here is usually referred to as
| commoditizing the complement, it's probably intentional at
| this point if it wasn't intentional from the start.
|
| https://gwern.net/complement
| czottmann wrote:
| > The only way to make a living is to rip-off users with
| misleading subscriptions
|
| (Personal experience/anecdata follows.)
|
| I don't know. I sell a macOS/iOS productivity app on the App
| Store[1], and while not getting rich there, I can tell you
| that's actually useful to people, you can put a non-peanuts
| price tag on it. I love that it's relatively straightforward to
| get an app out in front of a lot of potential customer.
|
| That said, I wouldn't never rely on the App Store to surface my
| app on its own, it's ridiculous.
|
| [1]: https://actions.work/actions-for-obsidian
| qup wrote:
| Why not write shareware again?
|
| More users than ever.
| vinni2 wrote:
| I am surprised there is so much money to be made in such simple
| applications. Kudos well done
| mk89 wrote:
| I am quite sure that the author of this post doesn't mean it
| bad, however, I don't want this post to give people the wrong
| impression that the money asked is not worth it. Far far far
| from the truth.
|
| I am learning Swift/swiftUI (as a backend guy with little
| previous experience with frontend/UI programs, okay) and
| building apps for OSX can be _very_ painful. Starting from
| outdated docs (basically no books about OSX development since
| ... 10-15 years? or more?) to the new fancy ways of doing
| things with SwiftUI (that sells the promise that "you do it
| once,..." and it will work exactly as they planned to when you
| sell *Hello World* apps).
|
| It's not the use case itself to be hard, but the fact you need
| to support multiple operating systems (which as you might know,
| Apple produces every year a brand new model, so imagine the
| fun), or that maybe the specific API you rely on (from Apple,
| not some random guy out there) has some weird memory leak
| because it's written in C++ or Obj-C, who knows last time
| someone touched it. And Apple is updating everything but that
| specific thing, so you need to build something around it. I
| don't even want to start on the lack of libraries for Swift - a
| lot of open source libs are outdated, bugged, last commits 1-2
| years ago, which means you either have to fork and fix, or
| well, you do it yourself from scratch.
|
| Nowadays selling software for OSX has basically nothing to do
| anymore with the idea or use case itself but all the toil that
| the poor developer has to put with up. I learnt that most apps
| on the App Store deserves some money (sometimes they ask for a
| lot, nothing to say, but that's their business model).
| alin23 wrote:
| I definitely feel your pain. I get flashbacks of interminable
| weeks of work where a bug that's clearly not caused by my
| code is suddenly affecting a number of users.
|
| Reverse engineering skills have greatly improved the way I
| develop things on macOS nowadays. Having access to any
| process memory and variables and being able to alter it using
| Frida makes it less painful to navigate obscure macOS APIs.
|
| Although if it's a problem in internal SwiftUI code, I'm
| afraid nothing can help you.
| mk89 wrote:
| Thanks for mentioning Frida - I will check it out,
| eventually.
|
| > Reverse engineering skills have greatly improved the way
| I develop things on macOS nowadays.
|
| I don't even want to know what you have to deal with for
| your app that handles the brightness of the screen.
| Monsters are probably less scary :)
| asim wrote:
| This is a beautifully poignant post about life and selling one's
| time. At 39 I've reached this point where I can verbalise that
| sentiment whereas before I could only really feel it. Having to
| sell one's time to others sucks. Doing things on someone else's
| schedule sucks. And ultimately as the post ended, having the
| freedom to spend life the way it should be spent means
| sacrificing that extra bit of money we might want but don't need.
| Great post.
| gumballindie wrote:
| You have seen the light. Thing is it's doable. Keep pushing.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| That's why I'm not that upset that no one wants to work with an
| old guy (that's me), and I was forced to retire.
|
| I still get to play with software, but on my own time, and on
| my own schedule.
|
| The difference is _amazing_.
| Exoristos wrote:
| How is that not actionable discrimination?
| vasco wrote:
| Something being illegal doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
| serial_dev wrote:
| I assume it's not that easy to prove, so most people don't
| take legal action.
|
| Personally, I don't take legal action even if I think I can
| win the case, because it's just too much time and effort,
| and I don't want my life to focus on said legal procedure
| for the next n months.
|
| I assume other people also think they need to choose their
| battles.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| I imagine it's a lot harder to sue an industry for not
| hiring you than it is to sue your employer for firing you.
| plagiarist wrote:
| If they're in the US, only provable discrimination is
| actionable, and you'd have to hire a lawyer.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| because they say "not a good culture fit" and you can't
| prove anything
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Yup. Also, the entire industry pretty much actively
| supports and accommodates ageism. It's not like a few
| "rogue actors." Everyone is in on it, and it starts from
| the top.
|
| Also, I found out that some younger folks _really hate_
| us. A number of folks used the interview process to try
| humiliating me, and taking out their personal animus.
|
| After a few of these, I decided "Bugger this for a lark,"
| and just accepted that I shouldn't bother looking,
| anymore.
|
| But I think people are being hoist by their own petard.
| I'm seeing folks in their forties, that never had any
| issue, finding work, hitting the wall. These were people
| that did it to others, when they were working.
|
| We can't become other races, and we [usually] can't
| become other genders, but we _all_ become old, so each of
| us will have a turn at the wheel.
| novok wrote:
| Have you tried the indie software thing like this guy?
| How has that been going? I feel like I have enough saved
| now that even if I can't get corporate work anymore due
| to age (which I kind of doubt due to the age of people
| I've worked with in FANG, and the fact I'm already pretty
| much a manager of managers, which tends to run older)
| that I would be pretty happy doing the indie thing too.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I've given a hundred people advice on handling
| discrimination at this point, and the thing I always stress
| is that it only matters what you can prove, not what
| happened.
|
| Protecting yourself against discrimination doesn't mean
| trusting the courts. It means being willing to lie or
| mislead people into thinking you aren't in the category of
| people who gets discriminated against, making yourself too
| much trouble to fire, and finding open-minded employers.
|
| If you're in a disadvantaged group, you need to pick your
| battles, and accept that life isn't fair.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| Amazing given you can maintain your standard of living.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I had enough saved, to allow myself to do OK. I wasn't
| planning on retiring for another ten years, but I wasn't
| really given a choice.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| Isn't $5800/month a shit ton of money in Romania? Who even gets
| paid similar amounts there? He mentions a consulting job, but you
| don't consult as many hours a month as a salaried person
| alin23 wrote:
| Yes, it's a lot of money in Romania. I could live very
| comfortably if that would continue being the case. If I had my
| own place.
|
| My "not bad" remark is because I still can't afford housing
| with all the money I make. I've been living in rent since
| college >10 years ago and I'm sick of it. You get no legal
| benefits when renting in Romania, everything is done by hiding
| from the state and local authorities. So you can't even get a
| family doctor in your area.
|
| Me and my wife have been trying to buy a house for the last 4
| years and even tried to renovate a 100 year old house in an
| isolated village because it was all we could afford. Long story
| but we got scammed, the land plot is unusable in its current
| state.
|
| Housing prices are so out of control here that even with that
| consulting money I would still need to not spend anything for a
| year to be able to afford a house that doesn't need heavy
| repairs and has all the paperwork in good order. It's very
| common here to sell houses that were built without a permit.
| int0x80 wrote:
| Very interesting and inspiring post. I am considering also to
| start my own indie software business, this is great information.
| threecheese wrote:
| I am a paying customer and regular user of Lunar and Rcmd (for
| which I might have paid more than 12 bucks, just sayin) and I am
| pretty sure I saw Clop on Setapp and was thinking of trying it.
| I'm glad to have the opportunity to give feedback: your app and
| website design aesthetic really makes you stand out from most of
| the "popular Mac app" authors (you know who you are), which have
| a very much Web1.0 look and feel (and many of these rockstars
| have been writing for the platform that long). I look forward to
| whatever comes next, and I always poke around when I see one of
| your links hit Reddit or wherever.
| alin23 wrote:
| Thank you! Wow, that's.. I'm glad to read all that. Warms my
| heart.
| perardi wrote:
| I just browsed the article, and missed you make Lunar until
| this comment.
|
| Fantastic work. Absolutely critical for taming the weirdness
| of my LG 5K display.
| hankchinaski wrote:
| It's difficult to find but as a freelancer you can find a middle
| ground working on interesting projects with radical autonomy
| earning $100/hour
| rubymamis wrote:
| Thanks for sharing! What factors contributed to higher earnings
| from some apps compared to others?
| xrd wrote:
| I'm really curious how you found that MacOS consulting work. I
| have been battling MacOS build problems for years and so agree it
| is a rare and important skill. But I've yet to find the right
| place to sell that skill.
| edandersen wrote:
| Romania levvies "corporate income tax" on revenue and not profit?
| Wow.
| wsh wrote:
| The author writes, about his purchases of computers, phones, and
| other hardware, "These are not recurring so I can't count them
| in."
|
| Here in the U.S., many such items would be considered capital
| assets, for which the cost would be recognized as an expense over
| time through depreciation, for both management accounting and tax
| purposes. It appears Romanian practice is similar; see
| "Depreciation" on this page:
|
| https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/romania/corporate/deductions
| tomschwiha wrote:
| Here in Germany its similar, maybe its could be worth for the
| author to consult a tax consultant as he may be missing out
| quite some money. Also a wage you pay yourself is usually
| better off for tax readons - that's why the maximum wage you
| can pay yourself as business owner is limited.
| dazhbog wrote:
| Agree about the accountant, they are expensive in some
| countries, but usually worth it.
|
| Can you elaborate on your last point? For salary you still
| need to pay >20% income tax + social insurance, and for
| dividends you still need to pay >20% after you just paid your
| corporation tax >15%.
|
| I'm curious, why its better to pay yourself more, when your
| laptop, phone and even food can be covered by the company?
| (Assuming a single founder company, doing everything legally)
| Jhsto wrote:
| Anecdotally relevant to employees too: sometimes companies (and
| even public organizations like universities) let you keep the
| hardware they buy for you after it meets the 3 years
| depreciation rule.
| andsoitis wrote:
| _"In your world, people are used to fighting for resources...
| like oil, or minerals, or land. But when you have access to the
| vastness of space, you realize there 's only one resource worth
| fighting over... even killing for: More time. Time is the single
| most precious commodity in the universe."_
|
| -- Kalique Abrasa, Jupiter Ascending
| madsbuch wrote:
| > But I like to believe that with that difference of $12k I'm
| buying time.
|
| As long as the semi-passive income from the apps leaves a bit to
| be saved every month, and there are better things to spend life
| on, then it seems to be a good choice.
|
| However, modern money system functions well enough that earning a
| lot a money in a period of time will afford not having to do that
| later. The question on what to spend time on is definitely harder
| a priori than a posteri.
| justinclift wrote:
| > But I like to believe that with that difference of $12k I'm
| buying time.
|
| Sounds like a "lifestyle" business. One which provides income to
| meet (and exceed) your needs, but you're not stuck head down to
| the grindstone as life passes by. :)
| justinclift wrote:
| > A bare metal Hetzner server: $600
|
| Alin, are you ok to share the specs of that server? I'm
| interested mainly because I'm a server guy and have a bunch of
| stuff at Hetzner, but nothing (yet) big enough to be US$600 for a
| single server. :)
| bbatsell wrote:
| The entire article is discussing annualized numbers, so
| $50/month, a fairly middling Hetzner server.
| justinclift wrote:
| Thanks, very good point. Completely didn't realise that. :)
| SushiHippie wrote:
| (Not OP)
|
| The cheapest are EUR44.76/month so that's already ~$600 (if you
| want your server to be located in germany you are already at
| minimum EUR51.36/month which would be ~$680)
|
| But you can get better bang for buck on the
| "serverborse"/server auction. (That's what I'm currently
| renting)
|
| https://www.hetzner.com/sb
|
| But if you want to have large storage while also using RAID + a
| decent amount of RAM you'll still get to the ~$600 per year
| pretty easily.
|
| I don't know what you have at hetzner, maybe you are thinking
| about VPS?
|
| EDIT: ah okay, you thought it was $600/month?
| fells wrote:
| Great blogpost and congrats to OP on the success.
|
| As someone who, in a past life, also sold apps on the Mac App
| Store (with some success), I could never escape the sense of
| insecurity, whether it be Apple "breaking" (or fixing?) things
| every WWDC, constant pursuit of the next idea, or potential
| competition. Not to mention, the fact that sometimes reviews
| seemed oddly personal and the occasional rude customer support
| emails could ruin a day. (This all probably says more about my
| own mental psyche than anything and I'm glad some people thrive
| in it.)
|
| In the end, I felt more comfortable doing the 9-5 engineering
| job, but it was definitely worth it and really taught me to be
| self-sufficient and exploratory in software development.
| alin23 wrote:
| Yeah, nothing can protect your heart from the inevitable 1-star
| review that makes you want to punch that human through your
| screen.
|
| Thankfully, my best selling apps are published on my website,
| where I don't have reviews. I have a contact form which can
| lead to the same disappointing messages, but at least they're
| not public and don't stay there forever.
|
| But yes I understand you, I had many periods when I
| contemplated going back to a "normal" job.
| dinkblam wrote:
| > The disadvantage of using a Merchant of Record like Paddle is
| that I don't get to reclaim the VAT at the end of the year. >
| That's because it's some kind of B2B relation: > I sell them my
| app in gross with 0% VAT, and then they resell it and collect
| taxes themselves.
|
| thats confused and wrong. it doesn't matter one bit if the
| merchant-of-record collects and remits VAT or if you do it
| yourself. the money ain't yours either way.
|
| what does matter in a big way for small business is VAT liability
| in the first place. merchants-of-records like Paddle and the
| various AppStores are basically liable for VAT in every country
| around the world.
|
| however a small business (like in this example with 100k revenue)
| is not VAT liable everywhere because VAT thresholds are often
| much higher. if you sell directly (e.g. via Stripe), you don't
| have to collect the VAT when selling in most jurisdictions except
| Europe. so you can either offer the product for 20 percent less
| and have a more competitive price or increase the price by the
| VAT and pocket it yourself instead of having to give it to the
| government of the customer.
|
| if believe this makes a huge difference for small companies but
| is rarely mentioned.
| underwater wrote:
| Interesting to compare the commentary about paying taxes vs app
| store fees. The effective tax rate for income and healthcare for
| "corrupt politicians to line up their greasy pockets" is very
| close to the 15% that Apple charges as a fixed percentage. But
| the latter passes without judgement.
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