Vunda's free and paid plans

Vunda has two plans. Building and previewing your app is free, and publishing it to the Apple App Store and Google Play is a paid monthly plan. The plan gate inside Vunda states it directly: The free plan lets you build and preview; publishing to the App Store and Google Play is a paid plan. So you can design, theme and preview your whole app before you pay anything.

The free plan

The free plan covers everything up to publishing. You can:

• Build your home screen, menu, custom pages and product templates in the visual builder.
• Brand the app with your colours, logo and fonts.
• Connect integrations like push notifications, analytics and reviews.
• Preview the real app on the phone preview as you work.

You do not need an Apple Developer or Google Play account to do any of this. The free plan carries no charge.

The paid plan

The paid plan is what unlocks publishing your app to the App Store and Google Play. It is a recurring monthly charge that bills through Shopify alongside the rest of your Shopify invoice.

The price is a flat monthly fee (roughly $299 per month at the time of writing, with a lower founding-merchant rate of about $249 per month). Prices change, so treat the figure shown on Shopify's hosted pricing screen as the authoritative current price, not this article.

How you choose a plan

The first time you enter the builder, Vunda checks that you are on a plan. If you are not, it sends you to Shopify's hosted pricing page, where you pick one. To get into the builder, pick the free plan; it covers building and previewing. When you are ready to publish, pick the paid plan instead. In Vunda, the button that takes you there is labelled Choose a plan.

This pricing and plan-selection screen is hosted by Shopify, not by Vunda, so its exact wording and the current price are owned by Shopify and may differ from what is described here. Shopify handles plan selection, the charge approval, and adding any charge to your bill. The free plan adds no charge; the paid plan adds a recurring monthly charge you approve before it starts. (Source: Shopify - app charges on your Shopify bills.)

When the paid plan is charged

A recurring app charge is added to your account when you approve it, but it is not due until your next Shopify bill, on the app's own 30-day cycle. That cycle may not line up exactly with your main Shopify billing period. See the Shopify guide above for how app charges appear on your invoices.

Changing or cancelling

Because building stays free, you can start on the free plan and upgrade to the paid plan only when you are ready to publish. Switching plans replaces your current recurring charge with a new one that you approve through Shopify. Cancelling the paid plan stops future publishing while leaving your built app and its configuration in place.