Set up your Apple Developer and Google Play accounts

Your app ships under your own brand, so it ships from your own store accounts. Before you publish you set up two developer accounts in your business's name - an Apple Developer Program membership for the App Store and a Google Play Console account for Google Play - and do a few one-time things inside them so Vunda can build and upload your app for you. You only need this when you reach the publishing stage, not while you build.

Here is the split at a glance. You: enrol in both programs, create an app record in each store, give Vunda access to both accounts, and enter your App Store Connect app id on the Publish page. Vunda: works inside your accounts to set up the upload credentials, handles the signing keys, and builds and uploads your app into your accounts.

You do not generate or send us any store credentials. For store access there is no App Store Connect API key to create, no .p8 file to email, and no Google Cloud project to set up - you give us access from inside your own accounts, and we do our work there. (Push notifications are a separate matter: if you connect Klaviyo or OneSignal you do create an APNs authentication key, a .p8, in your Apple account and upload it to that provider - see Connect Klaviyo push notifications and Connect OneSignal push notifications.)

Do the app records first, then the access

The order matters, and it is a security choice rather than a technicality. In Google Play Console a permission grant can be limited to a single app, but you can only pick an app that already exists. Creating your Play record first is what lets you scope Vunda's access to that one app instead of your whole developer account.

Vunda shows your iOS bundle ID and Android package name on the Publish page as copyable values, so you can create both records before we have any access at all. Nothing about that order costs you later: our build service registers the same iOS bundle id in your Apple account when it sets up your signing credentials, and it makes no difference to it whether the id is already there. Register it yourself anyway - it is the faster path. App Store Connect only offers you bundle ids that already exist, so if you wait for us to register it, your app record waits until we reach your credential setup.

What you will need

Start these before anything else. Both stores verify your details, and neither Apple nor Google publishes how long that takes, so it is the one part of publishing whose timing is out of your hands and ours. Everything else on this page waits on it.

To enrol with Apple as an organisation you need all of the following. Apple lists them as requirements, so a gap in any one of them stops the enrolment:

• A D-U-N-S Number for your company (government entities excepted).
• Your registered legal entity name. Apple does not accept a DBA, fictitious business name, trade name, or branch. If your Shopify store trades under a different name from your registered company, resolve that before you start.
• Legal binding authority to sign for the company. The Account Holder has to be an owner, founder, executive team member, senior project lead, or an employee with that authority.
• A work email address on your organisation's own domain.
• A publicly available, working website on that same domain. If your store already runs on your own domain, as most do, your storefront is that website and there is nothing extra to do. If you are still on a myshopify.com address, connect your own domain first - we have not tested whether Apple accepts a myshopify.com subdomain here, so do not assume either way.
• Two-factor authentication enabled on the Apple Account.

Enrolling as an individual instead needs your legal name (an alias or nickname will delay approval), a confirmed email, phone and address (no P.O. boxes), and two-factor authentication. (Source: Apple Developer Program enrollment.)

For Google Play you need a Google account, your business details, and to pass identity verification - Google may ask for a valid government ID and a credit card, both in your legal name. (Source: Use your Play Console developer account.)

You also need a payment method for each store's fee, and a little time in each dashboard to create your app record and then give Vunda access (both covered below).

Set both accounts up under the name you want shoppers to see as the app's publisher.

Step 1: enrol in the Apple Developer Program

This step happens inside Apple's developer site, not in Vunda, so the exact screens are owned by Apple. Verify against their current guide before you rely on it.

The Apple Developer Program is a paid annual membership. It costs about 99 USD per year, though the exact figure is set by Apple, so confirm the current price during enrollment. Go to the Apple Developer Program page, sign in with (or create) an Apple Account, and follow the enrollment steps for an individual or an organization. (Source: Apple Developer Program.)

Once you are a member you get App Store Connect, the web tool where your app's listing and builds live. This is where you create your iOS app record and find the App Store Connect app id you enter on the Publish page (Step 3). (Source: App Store Connect help.)

Step 2: create your Google Play Console account

This step happens inside Google Play, not in Vunda, so the exact screens are owned by Google. Verify against their current guide before you rely on it.

Go to the Google Play Console, sign in with the Google account you want to own the app, and register as a developer. Google charges a one-time registration fee to open a developer account; the exact amount is set by Google, so confirm it as you register. Choose an organization account if you are publishing as a business. (Source: Google Play Console.)

You will create your Android app record in this account (Step 3), then give Vunda access to that app (Step 4).

Step 3: create your app record in each store

With both accounts open, create an app record in each store: an app in App Store Connect for iOS, and an app in Google Play Console for Android. This is the listing your build attaches to, and it is where your store listing details (name, description, screenshots) will live. Neither store lets an outside tool create these records, so both are yours to do - each takes a couple of minutes, and you use the identifiers Vunda shows on the Publish page in the Create your store records step.

The Publish page tracks the two records separately, as Create your App Store Connect record and Create your Google Play record. That is deliberate: doing one and not the other is the normal state part-way through, and a single combined line would read as though neither was done. Each store reports its evidence separately and shows Recorded when Vunda has saved that evidence.

They report themselves in different ways, so expect the Publish page to ask you for slightly different things:

• Apple ID received. The numeric Apple ID you enter in the App identity section tells Vunda which record to target. Until Vunda can access App Store Connect, it is recorded data rather than an Apple verification.
• Google confirmation received. Your package name does not bind until we upload your first build, so there is no value for us to read back. Next to your Android package name there is a button reading I have created my Google Play app - press it once the record exists. We will not upload your Android build until you do.

On the Apple side there is one extra move: register your bundle id under Certificates, Identifiers and Profiles in your Apple Developer account first, then add the app in App Store Connect and pick the id from the Bundle ID list. Do the registration before you start the new app, because App Store Connect only offers ids that already exist. (Source: Register an App ID.)

The step-by-step for each is in Create your App Store Connect app record and Create your Google Play app record.

Creating the App Store Connect record also gives your app a numeric App Store Connect app id - you will find it in your app under App Information > General Information > Apple ID. Vunda needs that number to send your iOS build to the right app, and you enter it yourself in the Apple App ID field in the App identity section on the Publish page (see Configure your app identity), not by sending it to us. (Sources: App Store Connect help, Google Play Console.)

Step 4: give Vunda access to both accounts

Vunda uploads your finished build straight into your store accounts, and to do that we need access to them. You give us that access by inviting us, not by generating and sending keys. Both identities are shown in the Invite Vunda to your store accounts step on the Publish page, with a Copy button next to each address. These two screens belong to Apple and Google, so check the current labels in their guides before you rely on them.

• In App Store Connect, under Users and Access, invite the Vunda address shown on your Publish page as an Admin. Apple has no narrower role that still works here, and the reason is spelled out in Give Vunda access to your store accounts. We then create your App Store Connect API key inside your own account, so the credential that uploads your builds never leaves it. (Sources: Roles and access, Expo - submit to the App Store.)
• In Google Play Console, under Users and permissions, invite the Vunda address shown on your Publish page, then use the App permissions tab to pick the app you created in Step 3 and grant it the release permissions there. Google states that "App permissions only apply to the selected app", so granting it this way keeps our access to your Vunda app rather than your whole developer account. That address is Vunda's Google Play service account, and it lives in Vunda's own Google Cloud project - so you never create a Google Cloud project, never create a service account, and never handle a JSON key. (Sources: Add developer account users and manage permissions, Expo - submit to Google Play.)

The Publish page tracks this as Give Vunda access to your stores, and it clears once both invites have landed. You can remove our access from your own accounts at any time. Full instructions, including the Apple role rules that decide who can generate signing credentials, are in Give Vunda access to your store accounts.

You do not create the signing certificates

Both stores require every app to be cryptographically signed. You do not generate or manage those signing certificates yourself. Vunda builds your app with Expo's build service (EAS), which creates and stores the iOS distribution certificate and Android keystore for you. (Source: Expo - app credentials.)

So the signing keys are handled for you. What you owe from your side is the account setup, the two app records, and the two access grants from the steps above. You also enter your App Store Connect app id yourself in the App identity section on the Publish page.

After your accounts are ready

With your accounts, app records and credentials in place, you can build and publish from the Publish page in Vunda. When your build is finished, Vunda uploads it to your accounts and tells you it is your turn: Your build is ready. Submit it in each store, then record each store separately here. These are merchant-reported updates, not store verification. We upload the build, but the actual store submission is yours to make, because the accounts are yours. The full publish-and-submit flow is in Publish your app to the App Store and Google Play.

Before you submit, complete your store listings (screenshots, descriptions, a privacy policy, and the Play data-safety and content-rating details) - they are required parts of a submission, so you cannot finish one without them. See Complete your store listings and Your privacy obligations.