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Apple Developer Program: is the $99 worth it?

The Apple Developer Program costs $99 a year. A free account can test apps on 3 of your own devices for 7 days at a time, but can't publish or use TestFlight.

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The Apple Developer Program costs 99 USD per membership year, as of November 1, 2026, and you need it to publish on the App Store, use TestFlight or access Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles. Without paying, a free Apple Account still lets you build apps in Xcode and install them on up to 3 of your own devices, but those installs expire after 7 days and must be rebuilt. Nonprofits, accredited schools and government bodies can ask Apple to waive the fee.

How this guide was put together: every price, limit and rule here comes from Apple’s own developer pages (program, enrollment, membership help, renewal, fee waiver, TestFlight and Xcode Cloud), read on November 1, 2026, plus Google’s Play Console help page for the Android comparison. AskGPU hasn’t enrolled test accounts; the cost examples are arithmetic on Apple’s published figures.

How much does an Apple developer account cost?

Account Cost Who it’s for
Free Apple Account (registered developer) $0 Learning, building and testing on your own devices
Apple Developer Program, individual 99 USD a year One person or a sole proprietor; your legal name is the seller
Apple Developer Program, organization 99 USD a year A legal entity; the company name is the seller. Needs a D-U-N-S Number
Fee waiver $0 a year Eligible nonprofits, accredited educational institutions, government entities
Apple Developer Enterprise Program 299 USD a year Large organizations distributing internal apps only to employees

Apple’s enrollment page says the fee “may vary by region” and is shown in local currency during enrollment. Apple’s enrollment help says the purchase is taxed at your region’s or state’s rate where applicable; tax-exempt buyers can send an exemption form to salestax@apple.com to request a refund of the tax.

There’s no student discount. Apple’s FAQ says there’s no developer program for students, and that learning doesn’t require membership: an Apple Account gives access to Xcode, Swift Playground, documentation, forums and on-device testing. Accredited schools can enroll with a fee waiver for student work.

The fee is the same for individuals and organizations. The difference is paperwork: organizations must be a legal entity (Apple doesn’t accept DBAs, trade names or branches), have a D-U-N-S Number, a public website on their own domain and a work email on that domain, and the person enrolling must have authority to sign for the company. Our guide to getting a free D-U-N-S Number covers that step.

What can you do with a free Apple developer account?

You don’t need to pay to start. Apple’s programs overview says to “simply download Xcode from the Mac App Store — membership isn’t required” to build apps and test them on your own devices. When you sign in to Xcode with an Apple Account that has no membership, Xcode treats it as a Personal Team, with these limits from Apple’s account help:

Personal Team limit Free account Paid program
App IDs Up to 10, each expiring after 7 days Managed in Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles
Test devices Up to 3, expiring after 7 days Up to 100 per product family per membership year
Apps per device Up to 3 No limit stated on Apple’s page
Provisioning profiles Expire 7 days after issue; rebuild and reinstall Development and ad hoc profiles in Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles

A registered free account also gets beta versions of Xcode and the operating systems, the Developer Forums, Feedback Assistant and the option to join a team that an enrolled organization invites you to.

What a free account can’t do: publish to the App Store, use TestFlight, use App Store Connect, use Xcode Cloud, get code-level support or access Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles. Apple’s enrollment FAQ also says you need membership to “integrate with capabilities such as Siri, Apple Pay, and iCloud.”

The 7-day expiry is the practical catch. If you install your own app on your iPhone for daily use, you rebuild and reinstall it from Xcode every week, which is about 52 times a year.

What does the $99 membership include?

Apple’s “What’s included” page lists the main benefits:

  • App Store distribution to customers in 175 regions, plus Developer ID signing and notarization to sell Mac apps outside the Mac App Store.
  • TestFlight: up to 100 internal testers from your team and up to 10,000 external testers by email or public link. You can share up to 100 builds at once, and each tester can install on up to 30 devices. External builds need a first approval by App Review.
  • Xcode Cloud: 25 compute hours a month of cloud builds and tests.
  • App Store Connect: app submissions, pricing, sales and analytics reports.
  • Capabilities and services: In-App Purchase and subscriptions, push notifications, Sign in with Apple, iCloud (up to 1 PB of free storage per app), WeatherKit (500,000 calls a month), and up to 200 GB of Apple-hosted background assets.
  • Support: code-level technical support from Apple engineers, and developer support by email and phone in 9 languages.
  • Meet with Apple sessions, labs, workshops and one-on-one appointments.

What’s not included: a Mac. Xcode is a Mac app, so you need a Mac or a cloud Mac service; our guide to building an iPhone app without a Mac prices the options.

How much does Xcode Cloud cost beyond the free 25 hours?

Apple’s Xcode Cloud page lists add-on monthly subscriptions, which you can upgrade or downgrade at any time:

Compute hours a month Price Cost per hour
25 Included with membership —
100 US$49.99/month $0.50
250 US$99.99/month $0.40
1,000 US$399.99/month $0.40
10,000 US$3,999.99/month $0.40

Apple defines a compute hour as an hour of time used for a task such as a build or a test run, and gives the example that “running 5 tests of 12 minutes each equals one compute hour.”

Worked example: a solo developer runs one 15-minute build on each of 22 working days, plus a 15-minute test run each time. That’s 22 × 2 × 0.25 h = 11 compute hours a month, inside the included 25. A small team doing 4 such build-and-test cycles a day uses 22 × 4 × 0.5 h = 44 hours, which needs the 100-hour tier: $49.99 × 12 = $599.88 a year on top of the $99 membership.

What does a year cost in practice?

Three common situations, using Apple’s prices and its commission rates from the “What’s included” page: 30% on digital goods sold through the App Store, 15% for members of the App Store Small Business Program and some partner programs, and 15% for qualifying subscriptions.

1. Learning Swift and testing on your own phone. Free Personal Team. Cost: $0. Trade-off: reinstall every 7 days, 3 devices, no TestFlight.

2. A free app with no in-app purchases. Membership only. One year: $99. Three years: 3 × $99 = $297. Apple takes no commission on a free app with nothing to sell.

3. A paid utility selling 500 copies a year at $2.99, enrolled in the Small Business Program. Sales: 500 × $2.99 = $1,495. Commission at 15%: $1,495 × 0.15 = $224.25. Proceeds: $1,495 − $224.25 = $1,270.75. Minus the $99 fee: $1,171.75, before taxes. Without the Small Business Program, the 30% rate would take $448.50, leaving $1,046.50 − $99 = $947.50. Eligibility rules and an example at higher revenue are in our guide to App Store fees and the Small Business Program.

Publishing on both stores. Google says “There is a US$25 one-time registration fee” for a Play Console account. Year one for both stores: $99 + $25 = $124. Year two: $99, since Google’s fee doesn’t recur. Over three years: $297 + $25 = $322.

How do you pay, renew and cancel?

Payment. You can enroll on the web or in the Apple Developer app on iPhone, iPad or Mac. On the web, individuals paying by card must use their own card, or Apple delays the enrollment and asks for photo ID. If Apple Developer products aren’t sold in your region’s Apple Store Online, you get a card form and must use a card that can be charged in USD. Apple Account balances from gift cards aren’t accepted, except from developers based in India. Organizations pay only after Apple verifies the enrollment and emails next steps.

Renewal. Web enrollments can turn on “Auto-renew” in the Membership details section, available in certain regions, which charges the card on the expiration date. Otherwise you renew manually from 30 days before expiry or any time after. App enrollments renew automatically as a subscription until cancelled.

Cancelling. In the app, you can cancel up to one day before the renewal date and keep benefits until expiry. Apple says fees paid for the year in which you cancel aren’t refundable.

If your membership expires, per Apple’s renewal page:

  • Your apps are removed from sale, and you can’t submit new apps or updates or use Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles.
  • Apps already installed keep working for existing users.
  • If you renew later, free apps return within 24 hours; paid apps return once you accept the Paid Applications Agreement again in App Store Connect. You don’t resubmit them.
  • Registered test devices are removed automatically 180 days after expiry unless you opted to remove them earlier.

For Enterprise Program members the rule is stricter: internal apps keep running for 90 days after expiry, as long as certificates and profiles are still valid.

Who qualifies for a fee waiver?

Apple’s fee waiver page lists four conditions. The organization must:

  • Be a legal entity with nonprofit status (recognized by a relevant authority, such as the IRS in the US), an accredited educational institution, or a government entity.
  • Not be an individual, sole proprietor or single-person business.
  • Not have signed the Paid Applications Agreement to offer paid apps or in-app purchases, or have terminated it.
  • Not otherwise sell digital goods or services through any of its apps.

You request the waiver during enrollment, or the Account Holder can request it any time before the membership expires. The Account Holder must confirm eligibility again at each annual renewal. Apple doesn’t refund a fee already paid if the waiver is approved later, and if the organization stops qualifying, it owes the 99 USD fee again.

What to watch for

  • Your legal name is the seller. Individual members appear on the App Store under their legal name. To show a company name, you must enroll as an organization; converting later means contacting Apple.
  • Auto-renew charges on the expiry date. If you don’t plan to keep publishing, turn it off before then.
  • Expiry pulls your apps. Missing a renewal removes your apps from sale until you renew.
  • Commission is separate. The $99 doesn’t replace the 15% or 30% commission on paid apps and in-app purchases. Different rates and fees apply in Brazil, the EU, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia and South Korea, per Apple.
  • Device slots are per year. Disabling a test device doesn’t free its slot; you can reset the list only at the start of a new membership year.
  • The Enterprise Program isn’t a cheaper route to the public. At 299 USD it’s for internal employee apps only, and it needs separate identity verification.
  • Organizations need time. A D-U-N-S Number and Apple’s verification come before you can pay, so start early if you have a launch date.

Which account should you choose?

  • Learning iOS development or building for yourself: stay on the free account. Pay only when you need TestFlight, App Store release or capabilities like iCloud and Apple Pay.
  • An indie developer or freelancer shipping your own app: enroll as an individual for $99 a year. If you sell anything, join the Small Business Program.
  • A company, even a one-app startup: enroll as an organization so the company is the seller. Get the D-U-N-S Number first.
  • A contractor building for a client: Apple says the client organization should enroll and add you to its team; the client is the seller and submits the app.
  • A nonprofit, school or public agency with free apps: request the fee waiver at enrollment.
  • An app builder user: most no-code iOS builders still publish under your own Apple Developer account. Compare them on our iOS app builders page and in the best iOS app builders roundup, and see the full cost of making an app.

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