One of many first different app shops within the EU is shutting down

One of many extra outstanding different app shops that emerged within the EU on account of the area’s Digital Markets Act is shutting down. The shop, Setapp Mobile, from the Ukrainian-based developer MacPaw, first launched in September 2024, providing dozens of apps throughout classes like productiveness, finance, video, picture, creativity, and extra.

Its mannequin supplied shoppers entry to all of Setapp’s cell apps via a $9.99 month-to-month subscription, offered the person’s Apple ID was related to an EU member state.

Now, the corporate says all purposes will likely be faraway from Setapp Cellular by the tip of the sundown date, February 16, 2026. Functions which might be accessible on Setapp Desktop is not going to be affected, the corporate instructed TechCrunch.

The information of the shutdown, introduced on Setapp’s support site, was first noticed by MacRumors.

MacPaw said that “still-evolving and sophisticated enterprise phrases that don’t match Setapp’s present enterprise mannequin” are the explanation for its choice.

The “complicated enterprise phrases” being referenced listed here are Apple’s difficult set of charges for apps working beneath its new enterprise phrases within the EU, which embody a controversial Core Technology Fee that costs builders €0.50 for every first annual set up over a million up to now 12 months.

The tech big revised its payment construction final 12 months to keep away from additional penalties for noncompliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), however as an alternative of simplifying the charges, it made them extra complicated.

One results of these fixed adjustments is that builders can’t correctly plan the best way to develop and monetize their enterprise. It additionally suggests the charges, as they stand, don’t make operating another app retailer within the EU a viable choice.

In a press release shared with TechCrunch, Setapp mentioned it discovered its enterprise mannequin was not “viable,” because the industrial situations continued to vary. The assertion reads:

“Setapp Cellular was a daring, breakthrough challenge that aimed to offer EU iOS customers with entry to different app marketplaces – creating a brand new app ecosystem the place each builders and customers might thrive. We’re happy with what we now have achieved with it over the previous two years and nonetheless imagine passionately on this imaginative and prescient. Because of still-evolving industrial situations, we now have decided that it’s not viable to proceed improvement or help for Setapp Cellular inside Setapp’s present enterprise mannequin. Whereas we’re disenchanted to discontinue Setapp Cellular and let down our person base and developer neighborhood within the EU, we’re wanting ahead to pursuing the event of different improvements.”

There are nonetheless different different app shops working within the EU, together with, most notably, the Epic Games Store from the maker of Fortnite, and the open source AltStore.