How to Avoid Apple Fees on Facebook Ads

Paying an extra 30% on your Facebook and Instagram ads for absolutely no performance benefit is a painful reality for many marketers. This frustrating Apple tax quietly siphons away your budget when you boost posts through the iOS app, but it is entirely avoidable. This guide will show you exactly why this fee happens, the simple steps to prevent it, and why moving away from the boost button is the best decision for your ad performance anyway.

What is the Apple Fee and Why Are You Paying It?

That surprise 30% fee isn’t from Meta. It’s from Apple. According to its App Store policies, Apple takes a 30% commission on all digital goods and services sold through an in-app purchase system on iOS devices like iPhones and iPads. When you tap the “Boost Post” button inside the Facebook or Instagram app on your iPhone, you are initiating an in-app purchase. Meta, understandably, doesn't want to absorb that cost themselves, so they pass it directly on to you, the advertiser.

Here’s what that looks like in the real world:

• You decide to spend $100 boosting a great new post directly from the Instagram app on your iPhone.
• You enter your payment details and hit confirm.
• Behind the scenes, Apple processes this as an in-app purchase and takes its 30% cut, which is $30.
• Only the remaining $70 of your original $100 budget is actually sent to Meta to be used for your ad spend.

You paid $100, but your ad is only running with the power of $70. You lose thirty percent of your ad budget before the campaign even begins. For small businesses, solopreneurs, and anyone trying to make their marketing budget stretch, this is a massive and unnecessary drain on resources. The good news is that avoiding this fee is incredibly simple.

The Golden Rule: Never Hit "Boost Post" on your iPhone or iPad

The single most important takeaway from this article is this: the 30% fee only applies when you make the purchase through the Facebook or Instagram app on an Apple device. By simply changing where you create and launch your ads, you can bypass the App Store's payment system entirely and make sure 100% of your budget goes directly to Meta.

The Desktop Is Your Best Friend: Using Meta Ads Manager

Your number one tool for creating fee-free, high-performance campaigns is Meta Ads Manager. This is the professional-grade dashboard that all serious advertisers use, and accessing it through a web browser on your desktop or laptop computer is the easiest way to avoid Apple's fees. Your payment goes straight to Meta, with no middleman taking a cut.

While Ads Manager can look intimidating compared to the simple "boost" button, running a basic ad campaign that achieves the same goal is straightforward. Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Go to Meta Ads Manager

Open a web browser (like Chrome, Safari, or Firefox) on your computer and navigate to business.facebook.com/adsmanager. Log in with your Facebook credentials if prompted.

Step 2: Create a New Campaign

In the Ads Manager dashboard, look for the big green “+ Create” button on the left-hand side. Click it to start building your campaign.

Step 3: Choose Your Campaign Objective

Meta will ask you what your goal is. When you "boost" a post, the objective is usually defaulting to "Engagement." You can choose that here, or select a goal that's more aligned with your business needs, like "Traffic" (to send people to your website) or "Leads" (to collect contact info).

• Let's stick with Engagement for this example to mimic a typical boosted post. Select it and click "Continue".

Step 4: Set Up Your Ad Set

This is where you define who you'll target, where your ads will run, and how much you'll spend.

• Budget &, Schedule: Set your total budget (e.g., $100) and the dates you want the ad to run. You'll see that the full $100 is your spending amount, with no fees taken out.
• Audience: This is where you can define your target audience with much more detail than the boosting interface allows. You can target based on location, age, gender, detailed interests (like "online shopping" or "hiking"), and more. Take some time to think about who your ideal customer is.
• Placements: We suggest leaving this on "Advantage+ placements" to start. This lets Meta's algorithm show your ad across a range of places (like Facebook Feed, Instagram Stories, Reels, etc.) where it's likely to perform best.

Click "Next" when you're finished.

Step 5: Design Your Ad Using an Existing Post

Now, you'll choose the creative. Since we're replacing the "boost post" functionality, you'll simply select a post that's already on your page.

• Under "Ad Setup," choose "Use existing post."
• Click "Select Post" and choose the Instagram or Facebook post you want to promote from the list that appears.
• Call to Action (Optional): Unlike a standard "boost," Ads Manager lets you add a Call-to-Action button like "Learn More," "Shop Now," or "Contact Us" to your post. This is a powerful way to guide users toward a specific action.

Step 6: Publish Your Campaign

Double-check everything, then hit the green "Publish" button at the bottom right. That's it! Your ad will be sent for review, and once approved, it will run using the full budget you allocated, completely bypassing Apple's 30% fee.

Other Fee-Free Ways to Manage Your Ads

While desktop is the most reliable way to use Ads Manager, you have a couple of other options if you're on the go.

Use Your Mobile Browser

If you're away from your laptop, you can still access the full Ads Manager from your iPhone. It's not the smoothest experience, but it works perfectly for avoiding the fee in a pinch.

1. Open Safari or Chrome on your iPhone.
2. Navigate to business.facebook.com/adsmanager.
3. The mobile-optimized view might pop up. Look for the "..." or "aA" menu in your browser's address bar and tap "Request Desktop Website."
4. The interface will now load as it does on a computer. You can pinch and zoom to navigate through the campaign creation process outlined above.

Use an Android Device

This problem is specific to Apple's App Store policies. Boosting a post through the Facebook or Instagram app on an Android device does not incur the same 30% fee passed on to the advertiser. If you have an Android tablet or phone available, it's a completely safe way to use the in-app boost feature without parting with 30% of your budget.

Beyond Fleeing Fees: Why You Should Ditch the "Boost Post" Button Anyway

Avoiding the 30% fee is the most immediate reason to switch to Ads Manager, but it's far from the only one. Even if the fee didn't exist, using Ads Manager is a better strategic move for your brand. Relying solely on the "boost" button puts a major ceiling on your advertising potential.

Limited Targeting and Objectives

The "Boost Post" feature is designed for absolute simplicity, but that simplicity comes at a cost. Your options are incredibly restricted. You can typically only target based on very broad interests and demographics, and your primary campaign objective is limited to getting more engagement (likes, comments, shares).

Ads Manager opens up a world of powerful business goals. Do you want to:

• Sell products? Use the "Sales" objective with a Meta Pixel installed on your website to find people who are most likely to buy your stuff.
• Get more clients? Use the "Leads" objective to run on-platform forms that make it incredibly easy for users to submit their contact information.
• Drive app downloads? There's an "App Promotion" objective specifically for that.

Boosting is like shouting into a crowd and hoping the right person hears you. Ads Manager is like having a detailed map and GPS to find the exact person who is looking for you.

Lack of Control Over Placements and Creative

When you boost a post, Meta decides where to show it for you. This often means your perfectly square Instagram photo gets awkwardly cropped or displayed in places where it doesn't quite fit, like a vertical Stories placement.

In Ads Manager, you have granular control. You can choose to run ads only on Instagram Stories and Reels if that's where your audience is most active. Better yet, you can provide different versions of your creative for different placements. This means you can show a polished 9:16 vertical video in Reels, a cinematic 16:9 video in the Facebook feed, and a compelling square image on the marketplace - all within the same ad set. Customizing your creative to fit the placement leads to better engagement, a lower cost-per-click, and a much more professional look for your brand.

Final Thoughts

Don't give away a third of your ad budget without a fight. By shifting your ad creation process away from the iOS Facebook and Instagram apps and embracing the full power of Meta Ads Manager on a desktop browser, you immediately put 100% of your dollar to work. This simple habit keeps money in your pocket and puts you on the path to creating smarter, more effective advertising campaigns.

We know that juggling an organic content strategy and a paid one can make social media feel cluttered and complicated. That’s why we created Postbase, a clean, modern hub that allows our team to visually plan, schedule, and analyze all our content across every platform. By focusing on building a great content library first, we can easily see which pieces are resonating organically and then make informed decisions on which ones to amplify into full-fledged campaigns using the proper fee-free methods inside Ads Manager.