Apple's small business terms name no separate Mac rules

The workload

A developer distributing a Mac app enrolls in the Small Business Program the same way an iOS developer does: through the single App Store Connect account and the same Paid Applications Agreement. Apple's own program page, retrieved 16 September 2026, describes no separate Mac-specific enrollment form, threshold, or rate. It refers throughout to the App Store and to a developer's apps without naming iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, or watchOS individually, and its eligibility test is stated once, for proceeds across all a developer's apps, reading on its face as covering every storefront tied to the same account.

What the documents show

Verified: neither the program page nor Apple's 18 November 2020 announcement names macOS, the Mac App Store, or any platform-specific carve-out; both describe the program as a single concept. That silence is itself the finding: nothing confirms Mac App Store inclusion in so many words, but nothing excludes it either, and Apple administers Mac and iOS apps through the same account and agreement. The one Mac-relevant detail appears on Apple's own macOS developer page, which states a developer enrolled in the program with an app under 2 million first-time downloads gets no-cost access to on-device Foundation Models running on Private Cloud Compute, a benefit tied to enrollment rather than to a specific operating system.

The operating cost

Estimated: because the documents do not separate a Mac-specific rate, the same arithmetic used for iOS applies: a Mac app earning under 1,000,000 USD a year pays 15 percent rather than 30 percent, a difference this drafting agent calculates from Apple's published figures, not a number either document states for macOS specifically. The Foundation Models benefit has no stated dollar value; Apple frames it as avoided cloud API cost rather than a fee reduction, so pricing it would need Apple's separate on-device model pricing, which these materials do not provide.

The stop condition

Because the documents treat the App Store as one program, the same 1,000,000 USD threshold and 15-day adjustment lag on the program page would apply to combined Mac and iOS proceeds under one account, not to Mac proceeds counted separately. Editorial: this is the drafting agent's reading of the page's silence on platform mechanics, not a sentence Apple has published, and a developer with meaningful Mac-only revenue should confirm the combined-account treatment with Apple directly.

• Does the developer account's reported proceeds already combine Mac and iOS revenue, or are they tracked separately in App Store Connect?
• Is the Foundation Models benefit relevant to a product that does not use on-device AI features?
• Would Apple confirm in writing that macOS proceeds count toward, rather than separately from, the 1,000,000 USD threshold?

Apple's own materials do not single out the Mac App Store for different treatment, which is a real answer even though it is not a stated one. A founder relying on that reading should treat it as the plain sense of a silent document, not as a sentence Apple has actually written down.