The path
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Get a D-U-N-S number you
A free business identifier from Dun & Bradstreet. Apple and Google both require it for a business account, and the same number serves both — so you apply once. Apply through Apple's D-U-N-S lookup page, which routes to D&B and is free.
The name and address you register must match your business registration exactly, and must keep matching afterwards: Google restricts accounts whose details drift from the D&B profile, and a restricted account has its apps removed.
Free · up to 30 days, occasionally 2 days · start it now -
Install Bunyawi and design the app you
Nothing here waits on the paperwork. Install from the Shopify App Store, pick your colours, upload your logo, lay out the home page, choose your tabs, write your welcome notification — and watch all of it on your own phone in the live preview. The 14-day trial starts here.
An afternoon · free trial -
Enrol in the Apple Developer Program — as an Organization you
$99 a year. Choose Organization, not Individual — there is no conversion path between them without contacting Apple support, so getting it wrong the first time is expensive.
Apple will want: your legal entity name exactly as registered (no trading names or abbreviations), your D-U-N-S number, a working public website on your own domain (a registrar parking page is rejected), an email address on that same domain, and a person with authority to bind the company. Some jurisdictions get asked for notarised documents.
$99/year · 24 hours to 14 days after the D-U-N-S lands -
Open a Google Play developer account — organization, not personal you
$25, once, and prepaid cards are not accepted. Choose the organization account type, again using the same D-U-N-S number.
This matters more than it looks. A personal Play account opened after November 2023 must run a closed test with at least 12 testers, opted in continuously for 14 days, before it can even apply for production access — and then wait about another week for review. An organization account is exempt. Choosing the wrong type here adds three weeks to your launch.
$25 once · account review is usually days, once the D-U-N-S exists -
Give us the least access that works you
Apple: in App Store Connect, create an API key with the App Manager role and paste the Issuer ID, Key ID and the downloaded key file into your Bunyawi dashboard. That is the least privilege that can still upload a build and submit it for review. You stay the Account Holder. Revoke the key at any time and we lose access instantly — and it never exposes your Apple ID or your two-factor device.
Never send us an Apple ID and password. Anyone who asks you for one is asking you to hand over your whole account, and Apple's own rules do not require it.
Google: you create the empty app entry (that part can only be done by the account owner), then invite us as a Play Console user with view access, release to testing tracks, release to production, manage store presence and manage policy declarations — and no financial permissions and not the Admin role.
About 20 minutes, both stores -
Have the listing pieces ready youus
We generate the screenshots from your live app and write the first draft of the listing text. What only you can supply: a 1024×1024 app icon (or we make one from your logo), the app name as it should appear in the stores, a support URL and email, your privacy policy URL, and a page on your own site where a customer can ask for their account to be deleted — Google requires that link to exist and to name your app.
Two forms are legally yours to answer and no vendor may fill them in for you: Apple's App Privacy questionnaire and Google's Data Safety form. We send you the exact answers that match what the app actually collects; you tick them.
About an hour -
We build, sign and submit us
Press Build in the dashboard. iOS goes straight to your TestFlight through your API key. On Android we sign the release file and put it in your Play Console — Google's developer terms forbid any third-party tool from uploading on your behalf through their API, so that step is done by a human, by us as an invited user or by you in two clicks. Anyone who tells you their system uploads to Play automatically is describing something Google prohibits.
You try both builds on your own phone before either goes for review. Then we submit, and any review questions come to us.
Build ~20 minutes · Apple review 1–3 days · Google review 1–7 days -
Live usyou
Your apps are in both stores under your business name. From here on, colours, home sections, tabs, banners and text change from your dashboard and reach customers in about a minute — no new build, no new review. Only the icon, the app name and the splash screen need a rebuild.
What it costs and how long it takes
| Step | Who pays | Cost | Typical time |
|---|---|---|---|
| D-U-N-S number | — | Free | 2 days to 30 days |
| Apple Developer Program (Organization) | You, to Apple | $99 / year | 1 to 14 days |
| Google Play developer (organization) | You, to Google | $25 once | Days |
| Bunyawi subscription | You, via your Shopify invoice | From $49 / month | 14 days free first |
| Designing the app | — | Included | An afternoon |
| Building, signing, submitting | Included | $0 | ~20 min + store review |
Two things nobody else tells you up front
Why the accounts must be yours
Apple's Review Guideline 4.2.6 says apps made with a template or app-generation service are rejected unless the provider of the app's content submits them. That is you. Some vendors publish merchant apps under their own developer account anyway; it works until it doesn't, and it means your listing, your reviews and your install base sit inside a company you do not control. Getting an app back from a vendor-owned Play account needs their cooperation and the transaction ID from their original $25 receipt.
We never hold the listing, so there is nothing to claw back if you leave. If you are coming off a vendor-owned account today, tell us — an app transfer loses its push notification certificates unless someone re-provisions them, and we will handle that with you.
Android releases have a human in them, on purpose
The Google Play Developer API terms forbid a third party from publishing on your behalf through the API, or from using your service account to do it. There is no Android equivalent of Apple's API key. Every vendor in this category deals with this the same way — a person, invited to your Play Console, uploading through the interface — and we would rather say so than imply an automation that the terms do not allow.