What you need to know
- Amazon has introduced a new program that will help Alexa skill developers earn more.
- Developers making less than $1 million a year will get an 80 percent share, up from 70 percent.
- The new program will kick off in early 2022.
Amazon announced a new developer program on Tuesday that will see the company take a smaller cut of Alexa skill revenue than the current scheme, increasing developer share.
The new Alexa Skill Developer Accelerator Program will officially launch in the second quarter of 2022, with developers earning an 80 percent commission. That's a 10% increase over what they're currently receiving. The updated revenue, however, will be available only to developers earning less than $1 million per year.
The increase will rely on a previous calendar year's worth of revenue across in-skill purchases (Alexa's version of in-app purchases), subscriptions, and paid skill purchases. Amazon announced paid skills in July to let developers charge users a one-time fee to access voice apps on their best Alexa speakers.
Kelly Wenzel, director of B2B and Alexa developer programs, wrote in a blog post: "When the Alexa Skill Developer Accelerator Program launches, developers will be able to take advantage of benefits like new incentive programs, personalized feedback to optimize their skill experience with best practices for user experience and customer satisfaction, help identifying monetization opportunities, and more."
Amazon will launch the new revenue model alongside updated developer benefits designed to increase traffic and visibility of their skills. The increased benefits could be worth as much as an extra 10 percent of a developer's potential revenue. This means that their total potential benefits could be as high as 90 percent.
The online retail giant joins other tech behemoths such as Google in reducing its cut of developer revenue. Earlier this year, the search giant dropped its Play Store commission on in-app purchases to 15 percent.
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