What It Actually Costs to Vibecode a Mobile App

"Free with AI" is a myth the moment you touch the app stores. The AI that writes your code might cost nothing to run locally, but Apple and Google both charge to publish, and a few services in the middle add up. Here's every line item, so nothing surprises you at launch.

Prices are current as of mid-2026 and rounded. Store fees and subscription tiers change — treat these as the shape of the bill, not a quote.

The one thing you can't avoid: developer accounts

| Store | Fee | Model | |-------|-----|-------| | Apple Developer Program | $99 / year | Recurring — lapses if unpaid | | Google Play Console | $25 | One-time, lifetime |

That's the floor. Apple's is a yearly subscription; if you stop paying, your apps get pulled from the store. Google's is a single $25 fee forever. If you only ship to Android, your unavoidable cost is literally twenty-five dollars.

The AI itself: $0 to ~$200/month

This is the part you control most.

• Local models (Ollama, etc.) — $0 in fees. You pay in electricity and a capable machine. Great for privacy and for never worrying about token bills, weaker on the hardest reasoning.
• Cursor / Windsurf / similar — around $20/month for the standard tier.
• Claude Code / Claude subscriptions — roughly $20–$200/month depending on tier and usage.
• Pay-per-token APIs — anywhere from a few dollars to a few hundred a month depending on how much you build.

A realistic solo builder spends $0–$40/month here. If you lean on a local model for the bulk of the work and a cloud model only for the hard parts, you can keep this near zero.

Building the app: the Mac problem

Android builds run on any OS for free with Android Studio. iOS is where it gets interesting, because Xcode only runs on macOS.

Your options for iOS builds:

| Option | Cost | Notes | |--------|------|-------| | A Mac you already own | $0 | Cheapest if you have one | | EAS Build (Expo cloud) | Free tier, then paid | Builds iOS in the cloud — no Mac required | | Rented Mac in the cloud | ~$20–$60 / month | MacStadium, etc. — overkill for most | | Buy a used Mac mini | ~$400–$600 once | Pays for itself vs. renting |

This is the headline saving of the Expo stack: EAS's free tier lets you build and submit iOS apps without owning any Apple hardware. Low-volume builders often never leave the free tier. Higher volume moves you to a paid EAS plan (roughly tens of dollars a month, or pay-per-build) — check current Expo pricing before you commit, as their tiers shift.

The backend: $0 until you have users

Plenty of apps need no backend at all — everything lives on-device with local storage. If you do need one:

• Serverless / free tiers (Supabase, Firebase, Vercel, Cloudflare) — genuinely free until you have real traffic, then usage-based.
• A small VPS — $5–$12/month if you'd rather self-host.
• Push notifications — free through Expo's push service or the platform providers at hobby scale.

Budget $0/month at launch, scaling with actual usage. Don't pre-pay for capacity you don't have users for yet.

Odds and ends

• App icon and screenshots — $0 if you generate them with an image tool; the stores just need the right sizes.
• A domain (for a landing page or privacy policy) — ~$10–$15/year. Apple and Google both require a privacy policy URL.
• Design assets / fonts — $0 with open-source options.

Putting it together

Three realistic budgets:

The absolute minimum (Android-only, local AI, no backend)

| Item | Cost | |------|------| | Google Play (one-time) | $25 | | Everything else | $0 | | Total to ship | $25 |

The typical solo builder (both stores, first year)

| Item | Cost | |------|------| | Apple Developer | $99 / year | | Google Play | $25 once | | AI (local + occasional cloud) | ~$0–$20 / month | | EAS Build | Free tier | | Backend | Free tier | | Domain | ~$12 / year | | Year one | ~$135–$375 |

Scaling up (paid AI, paid build tier, real backend)

| Item | Cost | |------|------| | Store fees | ~$124 / year | | AI subscription | ~$20–$200 / month | | EAS paid plan | ~tens / month | | Backend at scale | usage-based | | Monthly, roughly | $50–$300+ |

The takeaway

You can put a real app in both stores for well under $200 in year one, and on Android alone for $25 flat. The AI tooling is the most elastic cost — the same build might cost you nothing on a local model or a couple hundred a month on cloud APIs, and that's a dial you control.

The trap isn't the money; it's paying for tiers before you have users. Start on free tiers everywhere, ship, and only upgrade the specific thing that's actually constraining you.

Related reading

• Pick the right stack first: Native vs. Cross-Platform in 2026
• Get it into the stores: Shipping a Vibecoded App to the App Store and Google Play