I have just been through it myself
As I write this, my own app is sitting in Apple's review queue. It is called Pawinia, a companion app for pet owners in Switzerland: health records, reminders, walks, and an alert when an animal goes missing. It has been live on Google Play since early October. The iPhone version went in for review two days ago and is waiting its turn, like everyone else's.
So this is not a summary of what other people say about app stores. It is what the last few months actually looked like for me, including the parts that went wrong, because those are the parts that will save you time.
The code is not the slow part
Most people picture the app itself as the mountain to climb. It usually is not. I build with React Native, so one codebase runs on both Android and iPhone, and the screens, the logic and the backend move at a steady, predictable pace.
What slows a launch down is everything around the code: accounts, testing rules and review queues. None of it is difficult. All of it runs on someone else's clock, and the only real trick is to start those clocks early.
Step one: the developer accounts, opened on day one
To publish, you need a Google Play developer account, which costs a one-time fee of about 25 dollars, and a membership in Apple's Developer Program, which costs about 100 francs a year. Both check who you are. Google was quick. Apple took seventeen days and asked for identity documents before saying yes. Nothing was wrong, that is simply how long it took.
That is why, on a client project, the accounts are the first thing we open, before a single screen is designed. And they are opened in your name, with my help if you need it. The app you pay for should live under your own account, so it stays yours whatever happens.
The Google rule that surprised me: 12 testers for 14 days
Since late 2023, a new personal Google Play account cannot publish straight to the public. First you run a closed test: at least 12 people opt in and keep the app installed for 14 days in a row. Then you answer a short questionnaire about how the test went, and Google decides whether you get access to the real store.
My first fourteen days were close to useless. Friends installed the app, opened it once and forgot it existed. Rather than send in a weak application, I waited. Another of my apps had its first application turned down for exactly that reason, so I knew what was coming. The second round, with testers who actually used the app, went through, and Pawinia went public on 3 October.
Here is the part worth knowing if you run a business: the rule applies to personal accounts. An organization account, registered with a D-U-N-S number, skips it entirely. If the app belongs to your company, open the account as the company. It can save you weeks.
Apple: strict, but more predictable than its reputation
Apple's review has a frightening reputation. In practice it works like a checklist, and most rejections happen for reasons you can know in advance. A few apply to almost every app. An app that is just a website in a wrapper gets refused, so it has to feel like a real phone app. If people can create an account, they must be able to delete it from inside the app. If you sell a subscription, the purchase screen must show the price, the renewal terms and a way to restore earlier purchases, and you may not send iPhone users off to pay on your website instead.
I go through that list before every submission, which is a lot cheaper than learning it from a rejection email. The review itself usually comes back within a few days. Before that, Apple's beta program, TestFlight, lets real people try the app, and unlike Google there is no minimum number of testers. One small surprise for anyone who knows the old rules: you no longer need a Mac. Pawinia's iPhone builds are made on a Mac in the cloud, started from a Windows laptop.
What it costs and how long it takes
My mobile packages have a fixed price. Android alone is CHF 10,000 and takes 6 to 10 weeks. Android and iPhone together is CHF 14,000 and takes 8 to 12 weeks. Submission to the stores is included, and so are three months of bug fixes after launch. On top of that come the store accounts mentioned above. The spread in weeks is mostly the part nobody controls: test periods and review queues. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.
Can an app make money?
Yes, though it helps to be clear about how. There are four common ways, and they suit very different apps.
- A subscription: people pay every month for something they keep using. Pawinia works this way, with a 14-day free trial. It is the strongest model when the app is useful every week, and the weakest when it is not.
- A one-time purchase: simple and honest, but the income stops when downloads slow down, while the cost of keeping the app up to date does not.
- An app that serves your business: it earns nothing on its own, but it takes bookings, brings customers back or replaces paper forms. For most small businesses, this is where the real return is.
- Advertising: only worthwhile with a very large audience, and heavily restricted for apps aimed at children.
Whatever you sell inside the app, Apple and Google keep a share. For small developers it is usually 15 percent on both stores, up to a million dollars a year. Build that into your price from the start.
The lesson that had nothing to do with stores
Getting someone to install an app is easy. Getting them to open it again next Tuesday is the real work. My first testers explored almost every screen on their first visit, and most of them never came back. That told me more about what to fix than any review ever did.
So if you are planning an app that should pay for itself, the first question is not Android or iPhone. It is: why would someone open this on an ordinary day? If you have a good answer, the stores are a solvable problem. If you do not, no store will solve it for you.
If an app idea has been sitting in a notebook because the stores looked like a maze, the maze is smaller than it seems. Accounts, store listings, screenshots, review notes and testing rules are my part of the job, and I have just walked through all of it with my own app. Your part is the idea, and knowing who it is for.