The Reckoning In App Monetisation: How DTC Can Drive Profitability For The Broader App Market

-By Chen Aspler, Director of Payments and Fraud Prevention at Appcharge–

2025 marked a pivotal moment for the gaming industry when a US court ruling forced Apple to let publishers offer in-app transactions directly to their users, bypassing the 30% transaction fee. Within a year, direct-to-consumer (DTC) has already become a booming channel, accounting for around 15% of the $113.3Bn mobile gaming in-app purchase market; approximately $17Bn today.

The potential for DTC is proven. GDC Festival of Gaming research, commissioned by Appcharge, reveals that early adopters are seeing a median revenue uplift of 35%, with 63% already outperforming app store monetisation. Today, any publisher with an alternative payment system can expect to generate a double-digit margin increase and further benefits of direct selling.

This is a beacon to the wider app economy, such as AI creation, fitness, education, lifestyle, entertainment and other subscription services. With the global in-app market across all consumer apps projected to reach $290Bn by 2030, it’s a multi-billion opportunity for publishers. Brands that haven’t already are scrambling to get started.

But leaving the safe haven of the Apple/Google model might feel risky to app publishers starting out on their DTC journey.

To succeed in the evolving payments labyrinth, app developers must make DTC a strategic priority armed with dedicated senior leadership, a DTC strategy and the right DTC infrastructure. Only then will they make the most of this key channel and take control over where the business goes next.

The DTC Maturity Gap

We’re seeing a reckoning in DTC with a widening revenue gap between leaders and laggards at around 7x. According to the Appcharge report, “innovator” studios are charging ahead with a median DTC revenue share of 35%, compared with “late adopters” at 5%. It’s the same market and players, yet this DTC maturity gap opened in less than 12 months. This means 35% of their total revenue has shifted from traditional billing systems that take 30% fees on every transaction to a DTC vendor that takes around 5%. For large publishers, this represents a huge amount of revenue.

Optimism for DTC growth is indisputable. 67% of publishers expect DTC revenue to grow in 2026, yet only 25% describe their DTC strategy as scaling or mature. Most of the industry expects the channel to grow while simultaneously admitting they’re not ready for it.

It’s a steep learning curve, with only 14% of publishers considering themselves ahead of the industry on DTC while 62% say they’re behind. Publishers realise they need to be in the race, but it’s one that’s already started.

Opportunities And Challenges In Moving To DTC

Top objectives for investing in DTC include increasing revenue (63%), building direct relationships with players (53%), improving monetisation (45%), and reducing dependency on app stores (40%).

Success is proven, with early adopters of the DTC channel reporting rising revenues and expecting sales to continue to accelerate. Direct interaction with users and their data is helping to improve engagement, control pricing, generate personalised offers, deepen relationships, and stay ahead of competitors.

On the flip side, challenges are largely operational, with publishers facing demands the app store model never required. Before DTC, publishers didn’t need to think much about payment processing, global tax compliance, fraud, chargebacks and refunds. The app stores took care of it, as part of their 30% fees. Processing payments outside of these traditional billing systems shifts the responsibility to the publisher, who either has to build those capabilities in-house or use a specialist DTC payments vendor.

Scaling is also a challenge, as is having dedicated teams and the right DTC payments infrastructure. DTC leadership isn’t just a one-department decision. It spans product, payments, customer success, finance, and legal. It requires leadership sponsoring it at the top and pushing it across the organisation.

Beyond ownership, it’s essential to have the right skills in the form of DTC expertise. 54% of studios have zero dedicated DTC employees. Among innovators, the average number is 14. The organisational gap between innovators and late adopters largely explains the revenue gap.

For smaller studios, the main concerns are friction around integration complexity, internal bandwidth and how much this will demand of the team. They simply don’t have the headcount to absorb a complicated implementation.

For enterprise apps, it’s about feature parity. They want the DTC experience to match what they have in-app, with the same offers, the same economy, the same feel. This sets the technical bar high, as understandably publishers want to match the sophistication of their in-game monetisation systems.

The Challenges Of Scaling DTC

Operations is not an easy landscape to move into and make a success of overnight. The moment you take payments outside the app store, you inherit issues the platform used to handle. This might be authorisation logic, fraud prevention management, dispute handling across dozens of markets, and managing tax and VAT across territories. Publishers are now handling these areas directly for the first time.

Therefore, a review of the app payments integrations and journeys must be an initial step in any DTC strategy. DTC owners can then make informed investments and avoid costly missteps that can compromise success. Even more so for first-time DTC strategists, the merchant of record (MoR) model can now replace that infrastructure in a single relationship without the 30%.

Key Features Of A Winning DTC Operation

At a technical level, all apps require different DTC infrastructure. A DTC payments platform that’s experienced in handling the tough problems can design a solution that will optimise revenue potential for that specific business. Strategically, some other things must also line up for success.

Here are some consistent features of those publishers doing DTC strategy well:

• Senior ownership – This should be one person who reports to a C-level and is accountable for DTC as a function, not just a project that straddles multiple teams with no clear home
• DTC is embedded in the business operating system – This means sitting within the budget and featuring in revenue projections with annual targets and KPIs. It must be treated as a core channel, rather than being evaluated quarter on quarter as to whether it “deserves” more investment
• The incentive structure is right – The monetisation team, the AMs, customer success, all incentivised by the success of DTC, not just by app store performance. When the people closest to the customer/player relationship have a stake in DTC growth, the whole organisation pulls in the same direction
• There’s committed resource allocation – Not huge numbers, but dedicated time from the people whose decisions actually shape the player experience. DTC touches various teams across the business, such as development, product, and customer success

A Sizeable Market Opportunity

Gaming has been the DTC proving ground for the rest of the app economy. Some of the next wave of brands in lifestyle, food and drink, health and fitness, shopping and finance are already making headlines around their DTC monetisation. This model can work for any high-velocity consumer business with global users and complex tax implications.

As the new world of DTC advantage opens up, it’s a given that publishers will meet complexity with DTC in-app payments. From high-frequency micro-transactions and virtual economies to global customer bases and real-time LiveOps.

For those fast-scaling app publishers already taking advantage of the channel, building smarter operations and tackling DTC mismanagement are the first goals. For beginners, a robust plan and a perfect blend of the right tech and human expertise is the winning formula.