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How Much Does It Cost to Publish an App? (2026)

The honest number is $124 in year one — plus the fee waiver almost nobody mentions, and the costs that never appear on an invoice.

Publishing an app to both stores costs about $124 in the first year: Apple charges $99 a year for the Apple Developer Program, and Google Play charges a one-time $25 registration fee. After year one it is $99 a year, because Google's fee never repeats. That is the whole cost of publishing. Everything else you may have read — thousands of dollars — is the cost of building an app, which is a different question.

Verified against Apple's and Google's own documentation, July 2026.

The actual numbers
What Cost How often
Apple Developer Program $99 Every year, ongoing
Google Play developer registration $25 Once, never repeats
Both stores, year one $124 —
Both stores, every year after $99 —
Google Play only $25 total, ever Once

Those are platform fees paid directly to Apple and Google. No tool, Choicely included, can make them go away — and any service claiming to publish your app for free is either absorbing that $124 or not telling you the whole story.

You may not have to pay Apple's $99 at all

Apple waives the Developer Program fee entirely for nonprofit organisations, accredited educational institutions and government entities. If you qualify, publishing to the App Store costs nothing per year, and Apple also waives the Core Technology Fee.

The conditions are specific. You must be a legal entity with that status, recognised by an official body — the IRS in the United States, the relevant charity register in the EU, and so on. You cannot be an individual, sole proprietor or single-person business. You must not have signed the Paid Applications agreement, or must have terminated it, and you must not otherwise sell digital goods or services in any of your apps. You request the waiver during enrolment and Apple reviews it.

So this is genuinely free only for organisations giving something away rather than selling it. But for a school, a charity or a public body, it removes the entire recurring cost of publishing — and it is the single most valuable thing on this page if you happen to qualify.

Why you may have seen $299

There is a second Apple programme, the Apple Developer Enterprise Program, which costs $299 a year. It exists for distributing proprietary in-house apps to your own employees, and it does not publish to the App Store at all.

If your goal is a public App Store listing, $99 is your number. Pay $299 and you have bought the wrong thing — a distribution channel that reaches only your own staff.

What the fee covers, so you don't budget twice

Several things people expect to pay for separately are included, and a fair amount of budgeting advice online quietly implies otherwise.

  • Signing certificates and provisioning profiles — included in the Apple Developer Program.
  • TestFlight — free, up to 100 internal and 10,000 external testers.
  • Play App Signing and Play Console testing tracks — included in the $25.
  • Unlimited submissions and resubmissions — a rejection costs you time, not money.
  • A D-U-N-S number, if you enrol as an organisation — free from Dun & Bradstreet, though it can take up to 30 days to obtain.
  • Store listing pages, screenshots hosting, app hosting and delivery — all included.
The costs nobody puts on the invoice

The $124 is accurate, but it is not the only thing publishing asks of you. These are the real extras — and note that most of them are time rather than money.

Cost What it actually is
Access to macOS Xcode runs only on macOS, and since April 2026 uploads must be built with Xcode 26. That means your own Mac, a rented or cloud Mac, or a cloud build service — unless your builder handles the build for you
Time on Google Play Personal accounts created after 13 November 2023 must run a closed test with 12 testers for 14 continuous days before releasing to production. Calendar time you cannot buy your way out of
Time on organisation enrolment A D-U-N-S number is free but can take up to 30 days; Google's payment verification can add up to five more
Rejection round trips No fee, but each one restarts review — and on Google Play a failed production-access application means another full 14-day test cycle
A privacy policy Mandatory on both stores. Free if you write it, a real cost if you have it drafted
Store commission, if you charge for anything See below — this is the only genuinely large number on the page, and it only applies once you are earning
What the stores take if you sell something

Registration fees are what it costs to publish. Commission is what it costs to earn. If your app is free and sells nothing, this section does not apply to you at all.

On the App Store, the Small Business Program charges 15% on paid apps and in-app purchases if you earned no more than $1 million in proceeds in the previous calendar year — "proceeds" meaning sales after Apple's commission and certain taxes. You have to enrol; it is not automatic. Above that threshold the standard commission applies, and if you cross $1 million mid-year the standard rate takes over for later sales.

Google Play is where most published advice is now out of date. As of 30 June 2026, Play restructured its service fees in the EEA, the UK and the United States. Rather than one flat percentage, fees now depend on whether the install is new or existing, with a separate billing fee, and on whether you participate in Google's developer programmes. Auto-renewing subscriptions sit at 10% plus a 5% billing fee with no revenue threshold. Google states that 99% of developers qualify for an effective fee of 15% or less.

Because those rates vary by region, install type and programme, we are not going to print a single number and pretend it is universal — that is exactly the mistake most pages on this topic are currently making by still quoting a flat "15% or 30%". Check Google's own service-fee page for your situation; it is linked in the sources below.

A realistic budget
If you are… Year one
Publishing to Google Play only $25, once, ever
Publishing to the App Store only $99/year, plus access to a Mac if you build it yourself
Publishing to both $124, then $99/year
A nonprofit, school or government body $25 — Apple's fee is waived if you qualify
Also building the app from scratch The $124 above, plus whatever building costs — a genuinely separate question

Building is where the cost normally sits — and that part can be free. Choicely builds real native iOS and Android apps free: 300 credits every month, no credit card, and you can preview the app on your own phone before spending anything. The $124 still goes to Apple and Google, because it always does. What changes is that you are not paying to build the thing first. Start free →

How much does it cost to publish an app on the App Store?

$99 a year for the Apple Developer Program, which is what allows you to publish at all. There is no per-app or per-submission charge, and resubmitting after a rejection costs nothing. Nonprofits, accredited educational institutions and government entities can have the $99 waived entirely.

How much does it cost to publish an app on Google Play?

A one-time $25 registration fee. It never repeats — pay it once and you can publish to Google Play for as long as the account exists. That makes Play the cheapest way to get an app in front of people, though a new personal account must first run a 12-tester, 14-day closed test.

Is it really only $124 to publish on both stores?

Yes, for the publishing itself: Apple's $99 a year plus Google's one-time $25. Higher figures you see quoted — a few thousand, or tens of thousands — are the cost of designing and building an app, not publishing it. They are a real cost if you are hiring someone to build it, and no cost at all if you build it yourself.

Do I need to pay $299 to Apple?

Only if you want the Apple Developer Enterprise Program, which distributes in-house apps to your own employees and cannot publish to the App Store. For a public App Store listing, $99 a year is the correct programme.

Are there ongoing costs after the first year?

Apple's $99 renews annually and your apps are removed from sale if it lapses. Google's $25 does not renew. So from year two, publishing to both stores costs $99 a year. Separately, if you sell anything through your app, the stores take a commission — 15% on the App Store's Small Business Program, and a restructured rate on Google Play as of June 2026.

Can I publish an app for free?

Not on the App Store, unless you qualify for Apple's fee waiver as a nonprofit, accredited educational institution or government entity. On Google Play, $25 once is as close to free as it gets. Anyone advertising completely free publishing to both stores is either paying those fees for you or describing something other than a real store listing.

The $124 is Apple's and Google's, and it is the same on every route. What varies is what you spend before that — Choicely builds real native iOS and Android apps free, 300 credits every month, no credit card, and the Publish Assistant walks the submission into both stores when you are ready.

Sources & disclosure: developer programme fees, the fee-waiver conditions, App Store commission terms and Google Play's service-fee structure were verified against Apple's and Google's own documentation on July 29, 2026. Google restructured Play service fees on June 30, 2026, so figures published before that date — including the flat "15% or 30%" still widely quoted — no longer describe the EEA, UK or US. Choicely publishes this page and sells an app-publishing product, so we have a commercial interest in it. Store fees change; we re-verify quarterly.