"How much does it cost to put an app on the App Store" gets answered inconsistently online because most answers either only count Apple's fee, or only count hardware, or quietly assume you're renting expensive cloud infrastructure you don't actually need. Here's every cost, split into what's mandatory and what's a choice.
Mandatory: Apple Developer Program — $99/year
This is the one cost nobody can avoid. To submit any app to the App Store — free or paid, one app or fifty — you need an active Apple Developer Program membership, which is $99/year, billed annually, direct to Apple. There's no one-time version and no way around it.
(There is a free-tier Apple ID for personal on-device testing without paying this, but it doesn't let you submit to TestFlight external testers or the App Store — for an actual public release, the $99/year membership is required.)
Required, but where you have genuine choices: building and signing
To submit a build, something has to run Xcode's command-line signing and archive tools — that part isn't optional. Where you have a choice is what runs it:
| Option | Cost | Recurring? |
|---|---|---|
| Buy a Mac | ~$799+ (Mac mini, entry price) | No |
| Rent a cloud Mac | ~$20–100+/month | Yes |
| GitHub Actions, public repo | $0 | No |
| GitHub Actions, private repo | $0 up to a monthly allowance, then per-minute | Only if you exceed the free allowance |
The short version on that last row: on a public repo, this line item can legitimately be $0, indefinitely.
Optional or one-time: the things people assume cost more than they do
- App Store screenshots and marketing assets. You can generate these yourself for free — from the Simulator or a physical device — no paid tooling required.
- A physical iPhone for testing. Not strictly required to submit, but you'll want one to sanity-check the finished app before release.
- TestFlight itself. Free, included in the $99/year membership.
- App Store listing itself. Free — no fee to list an app beyond the membership.
Adding it up
For someone shipping a side project on a public repo, using GitHub Actions instead of a Mac or a cloud rental:
Apple Developer Program ....... $99/year (mandatory)
Build & sign (public repo CI) ..... $0 (GitHub Actions)
Screenshots / assets .............. $0 (self-generated)
TestFlight / listing .............. $0 (included)
-----------------------------------------
Total to actually ship ......... $99/year
Compare that to the same app built with a purchased Mac (~$898 first year, then $99/year after) or a rented cloud Mac (~$339–1,299 first year, then that same range every year after). The gap is entirely in the "how do I run Xcode" line item.
Worth flagging plainly: the $0 build-cost row above is specific to public repositories. Keeping your code private doesn't change how the pipeline works or expose anything extra — it just switches you from unlimited free minutes to a metered monthly allowance. Still usually cheaper than a Mac or cloud rental, just not literally free.
I built the pipeline behind this shipping Citolex specifically to avoid a recurring Mac-rental bill on top of Apple's own fee. Packaged as a one-time $99 template at macless.dev — not a subscription.
