Microsoft Store policy skips the app-store cut for most SaaS apps

The workload

A solo founder listing a Windows or web SaaS client on the Microsoft Store must satisfy Microsoft's own Store Policies, version 7.20 as retrieved 16 September 2026, whose own metadata carries a 14 September 2026 date. Section 10.1 requires, verified, that 'metadata, including but not limited to your app title, description, screenshots, trailers, content rating, search terms, and product category, must accurately and clearly reflect' the app's actual function. Section 10.3.1 requires a 'working demo account' for any login-gated product, submitted through the Notes for certification field, a near-identical requirement to Apple's demo-account rule covered elsewhere in this pack.

What the documents show

Section 10.8.6 states, verified, that 'non-game products made available on PC devices may either use a secure third-party or the Microsoft recurring billing API to bill for subscriptions of digital goods or services,' meaning, unlike Apple's or Google's in-app purchase mandate, Microsoft does not require a solo SaaS app to route subscription billing through its own payment system. The same section requires that a developer 'may add value to a subscription but may not remove value for users who have previously purchased it,' and that a discontinued subscription must keep serving purchased goods or services 'until the subscription expires.' A second Microsoft document, its own certification-process page, states a specific timeline the policy document itself does not: certification 'can take up to three business days,' after which an approved listing becomes visible 'within 15 minutes.'

The operating cost

Because Microsoft does not require its purchase API for a non-game PC subscription app, the operating cost of Store distribution is developer registration plus whatever third-party payment-processor fee the founder already carries, not a separate Microsoft-specific commission stacked on top, unlike the App Store and Play Store paths covered elsewhere in this pack.

The stop condition

Microsoft's certification-process page names its own stop condition procedurally: a failed certification produces 'a certification report telling you whether or not your app passed' and which policy section it failed, and a developer can resubmit once the problem is fixed, with no stated attempt limit. This is verified, not editorial. The documents read for this entry do not state a point at which repeated failures trigger an account-level consequence, unlike Google's stated strike system; that silence is worth flagging rather than filling in.

• Does the app's billing route actually need to be a secure third-party processor, or does the recurring-billing exemption in 10.8.6 change that calculation?
• Is the working demo account current in the Notes for certification field, matching section 10.3.1?
• Does the three-business-day certification window, stated by Microsoft, fit the launch date being planned around it?

Microsoft's own Store Policies are less commercially demanding than Apple's or Google's for a plain subscription SaaS app, verified from the billing-API carve-out in section 10.8.6, though the certification and metadata-accuracy workload is otherwise comparable.