A studio's checklist for listing on a third-party iOS marketplace

Direct answer — what does a studio actually need to list a game on a third-party iOS marketplace? Listing an iOS app on an alternative marketplace is only available in the EU, and it takes four concrete things: adopting Apple’s Alternative Terms Addendum for Apps in the EU, passing Notarization (Apple’s baseline security review, not full App Review), getting a distribution security token from the marketplace you want to be on, then assigning your app to that marketplace in App Store Connect. On top of the marketplace’s own revenue share, you pay Apple’s platform fee: the €0.50-per-first-annual-install Core Technology Fee remains the operative charge today, even though Apple announced a move to a 5% Core Technology Commission — a transition originally targeted for 1 January 2026 that Apple’s own developer site still describes only as a plan, with no new effective date published.

If you’re a studio lead weighing whether an alternative iOS store is worth the engineering and finance overhead, this is the operational checklist we’d hand you — what to prepare, in what order, and where the App Store playbook stops applying.

What actually changes versus shipping on the App Store?

Two things change, and both are structural rather than cosmetic.

First, review splits in two. On the App Store, Apple’s App Review covers both platform safety and content/business-model policy. On an alternative marketplace, Apple only runs Notarization — a baseline review, combining automated checks and human review, that verifies your binary is free of known malware, functions as described, and doesn’t misrepresent itself or abuse privacy. Content curation, age-rating enforcement and catalogue rules become the marketplace’s job, not Apple’s. So you now answer to two reviewers with different bars: Apple for platform integrity, the marketplace for everything else.

Second, geography and eligibility get narrow. Alternative marketplace distribution works only for users with an Apple ID registered to an EU country who are physically located in the EU, confirmed eligibility criteria, on a recent OS version — Apple ties the alternative-marketplace installation experience to iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 18 or later (a separate, higher bar of iOS 17.5/iPadOS 18 applies specifically to Web Distribution, the direct-from-developer-website path, not marketplaces). That is a hard constraint on your addressable audience and it belongs in the business case before any engineering starts. If your EU install base is thin, the channel math rarely closes.

This is a distribution decision, not just a build task. If you’re mapping where an alternative iOS store fits alongside OEM stores, carrier billing and web-native, our distribution practice covers how studios sequence those channels rather than chasing all of them at once.

The pre-listing checklist: entitlements, notarization, builds

Here is the concrete sequence. Treat each item as a gate, not a suggestion — skipping one is how launches slip by a sprint.

1. Adopt the Alternative Terms Addendum for Apps in the EU. This is the opt-in that unlocks alternative distribution inside App Store Connect. Without it, none of the marketplace options appear. Note the one-way-ish nature: you can switch back to Apple’s standard EU terms only once, and only if you haven’t yet used alternative distribution or alternative payments — so decide deliberately, not by clicking through.
2. Confirm your Apple Developer Program membership and EU standing. Standard membership applies; there’s no separate paid tier to distribute on a marketplace. Notarization itself carries no fee.
3. Pick the marketplace(s) and request a distribution token. You can’t unilaterally publish yourself onto a store. You contact the marketplace developer (Epic Games Store, AltStore PAL, Aptoide, a games-focused store like Skich, etc.) and receive a security token that authorizes them to distribute your app. This is also your first real commercial conversation — listing terms, revenue share and merchandising are negotiated here, not with Apple.
4. Build and submit for Notarization in App Store Connect. You submit your build for Notarization the same way you’d manage an App Store build; Apple returns Notarized, Apple-signed binary assets. The signing chain stays Apple’s — the marketplace can’t re-sign your app.
5. Assign the app to the chosen marketplace(s). In App Store Connect you select which apps go to which marketplaces; you can add and remove marketplaces per app. The marketplace then hosts and serves those Apple-signed assets to EU users.
6. Decide your payment path. You can use Apple’s in-app purchase and payment processing, the marketplace’s payment system, or your own — each with different fee and compliance implications. Aptoide’s iOS store, for example, was the first to ship Apple-approved native IAP at a lower commission; we broke that model down in our guide to Aptoide’s iOS IAP.
7. Wire up the marketplace’s reporting and update cadence. Each store has its own console, payout schedule and update-submission flow. Budget for the ongoing operations, not just the first submission.

The build delta from an App Store release is smaller than teams fear — the app binary and signing are largely the same — but the process delta (two reviewers, per-marketplace tokens and consoles, EU-only eligibility) is real and needs an owner.

What does listing actually cost?

There are two cost layers, and studios routinely model only one of them.

Layer one: the marketplace’s own terms. Each alternative store sets its own revenue share and any listing or merchandising fees. These vary widely and are the thing you negotiate directly. Games-only curated stores are betting a focused catalogue converts discovery better than a general-purpose store — worth weighing when you compare offers, as we discuss in what Skich and Onside mean for publishers.

Layer two: Apple’s platform fee — announced to change, but not yet changed. Under the alternative terms, apps distributed through a marketplace are subject to the Core Technology Fee (CTF): €0.50 per first annual install, per year, on installs above a 1 million annual threshold. The first million first-annual-installs each year are free, and Apple offered a Small Business on-ramp for developers under €10M in global revenue. In June 2025, Apple announced it would replace the CTF with a single business model built around a Core Technology Commission (CTC): a 5% commission on digital goods and services, originally targeting 1 January 2026 across App Store, Web Distribution and alternative marketplaces. As of this article’s publish date, that transition has not happened — Apple’s own developer support page still describes it in future tense, past its original target date, with no new effective date published, and the per-install CTF is still the fee actually billed. Model both figures, but budget your near-term launch around the CTF as it stands today.

That prospective shift would change who the channel favours. The CTF punishes high-volume, low-monetisation titles (lots of free installs, each a €0.50 liability once past a million) and is comparatively lighter on high-ARPU games. We ran the break-even math in what the Core Technology Fee actually costs a game studio — that logic still frames the decision today, since the CTF is what’s actually billed. Keep a second version of the model ready for the 5% CTC, and revisit it once Apple publishes a confirmed new effective date — don’t plan a 2026 launch’s economics around the CTC as if it were already in force.

A rough way to sanity-check the economics before you commit:

• Marketplace revenue share — often materially below the App Store’s 30%/15%, but confirm the exact rate in writing.
• Apple’s platform fee — the €0.50 per-install CTF is what’s actually billed today; the 5% CTC is Apple’s announced but delayed replacement, with no confirmed new effective date, so don’t build your budget around it yet.
• Payment processing — Apple IAP, marketplace payments, or your own, each with its own cut.
• Operational overhead — a second review relationship, a separate console, and per-store reporting.

What should a studio do before committing?

Do the arithmetic before the engineering. A short, honest pre-flight:

• Size the EU-only audience. Alternative iOS distribution reaches only EU-located users on EU Apple IDs. If your paying EU cohort is small, stop here — the channel won’t pay back its overhead.
• Model against the CTF, and keep a CTC scenario on the shelf. The €0.50 per-install Core Technology Fee is what you’ll actually pay today; Apple’s announced 5% Core Technology Commission remains delayed, with no confirmed new date. Budget around the CTF, but keep the CTC math ready — if your title is high-install/low-ARPU, a future move to a revenue-percentage fee would likely help you; if it’s high-ARPU, check it wouldn’t cost more.
• Pick one or two marketplaces, not five. Each store is a distinct product relationship — token, console, terms, reporting. Half-integrating three stores is worse than fully operating one. This mirrors the broader alt-store lesson in the state of alternative app stores in 2026.
• Assign a single owner per channel. The failure mode isn’t the code; it’s treating the marketplace as a side experiment nobody maintains after launch week.
• Decide the terms opt-in deliberately. Adopting the Alternative Terms Addendum is a considered commercial choice with limited reversibility — loop in whoever owns your finances before you click.

If bandwidth is the real constraint and you’d rather not stand up this operational layer in-house, that’s exactly the kind of work our founding developer programme is built to absorb.

FAQ

Can I list an iOS game on a third-party marketplace outside the EU?

No. As of 2026, Apple’s alternative app marketplace distribution on iOS is available only in the European Union, and only to users with an Apple ID registered to an EU country who are physically located in the EU. Other regulatory openings (Japan’s MSCA, for instance) are moving in a similar direction, but the live iOS marketplace path today is EU-only.

Does my app still need Apple’s review if it’s on another marketplace?

Yes, but a narrower one. Every iOS app distributed outside the App Store must pass Notarization — Apple’s baseline security and integrity review — regardless of channel. Notarization does not cover content or business-model policy; that curation is handled by the marketplace itself. So you clear Apple for platform safety and the marketplace for catalogue rules.

What does it cost to distribute on an alternative iOS marketplace?

Two layers. The marketplace sets its own revenue share and any listing terms, which you negotiate directly. On top of that, Apple charges a platform fee: the Core Technology Fee of €0.50 per first annual install above a 1 million yearly threshold, which is still the operative charge. Apple announced in June 2025 that it would replace the CTF with a 5% Core Technology Commission on digital goods and services from 1 January 2026, but as of mid-2026 that transition still hasn’t happened — Apple’s own developer page describes it only in future tense, past the original target date, with no new effective date published — budget for the CTF today and watch for the actual transition date.

Do I need a completely different build for a third-party marketplace?

Largely no. The app binary and Apple’s code-signing stay the same — you submit for Notarization through App Store Connect and receive Apple-signed assets, then assign the app to your chosen marketplace. The bigger differences are process, not code: a distribution token from each marketplace, a separate store console, EU-only user eligibility, and per-store reporting and update cadence.

How do I actually get onto a specific marketplace like Epic or Aptoide?

You contact the marketplace developer and request a distribution security token that authorizes them to serve your app. That conversation is also where you agree commercial terms. Once you hold the token, you assign the app to that marketplace in App Store Connect after Notarization. We cover marketplace-specific angles in our pieces on Epic Games Store mobile self-publishing and Aptoide’s iOS IAP model.

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If you’re weighing whether an alternative iOS marketplace fits your title — and which one or two channels are worth the operational lift — our distribution practice walks through how we structure that decision for studios at different stages, or talk to the team for a candid read on your specific case.