You might not need the app stores at all
People assume that building an app means going to the app stores, and that going to the app stores is the finish line. Neither of those is true, and believing them costs beginners more time than almost anything else.
My app is in both stores. I still think most people should not start there.
What you actually get without them
An app that runs in a browser can be added to someone's home screen. On both iPhone and Android. Once it is there it has your icon, it opens full screen with no browser bar, and to the person using it there is no visible difference from anything else on that screen.
They tap an icon. Your thing opens. That is what a person means by "an app."
What you skip by going this route is not small:
- No review. Nobody decides whether you are allowed to publish.
- No fees. Not the annual one, not the one time one.
- No waiting. You change something, you put it live, everyone has the new version. Immediately.
- No resubmission. Fixing a typo does not involve asking permission.
That last one matters more than people expect. When your app lives on the web, a bug you notice at nine at night is fixed at nine fifteen, for everybody. In the stores, the same fix is a submission and a wait.
What the stores actually give you
I am not against them. I went through both. Here is what they genuinely provide.
Discovery, sometimes. People search stores. Whether that helps you depends entirely on what you built. If yours is something people would plausibly go looking for by category, a listing can bring you users you did nothing else to earn. If yours is for a specific group of people you are going to reach directly, store search will bring you close to nobody, and you should be honest with yourself about which one you have.
Credibility, for some audiences. Some people treat a store listing as proof that something is real. If you are asking strangers to trust you with their money or their information, that can matter.
Device features. Some things a phone can do are easier or only available inside a store app. Whether you need any of them depends on the app. A lot of apps do not.
Payments, with a catch. If you sell inside a store app, the store generally takes a cut. On the web, you keep what your payment processor does not take.
How to decide
The useful question is not "do I want to be in the app stores," because everyone wants that. The useful question is: is there anything my app needs that only a store can give it?
If you cannot name one, go to the web first. You will have a real, working, installable product in the hands of real people while the store version of you is still filling in forms.
And the decision is not permanent. The stores are still there in three months. What you cannot get back is the three months you spent on submission paperwork for an app nobody had used yet.
The order this implies
If you are going to the stores, some of that work has to start early, and this is where people get hurt. The paperwork has waiting periods, and the waiting does not start when you feel ready. It starts when you file. The clearest case is the Google Play rule that costs a month, where a free form filed in the wrong week costs you weeks of calendar time.
If you are not going to the stores, most of that disappears and your remaining costs are close to nothing. I broke that down in what building an app actually costs.
Either way, the decision belongs near the start, not at the end. Not because it is hard, but because it changes what else you have to do and when.
What I would tell someone starting this week
Build for the web. Make it installable. Put it in front of actual people and find out whether they use it, because that is the only question that matters and no store listing answers it.
Then, if the thing is working and there is a specific reason to be in a store, do that as a separate project with its own timeline. Treat it as a distribution decision, which is what it is, rather than as the moment your app becomes real.
Your app became real when somebody used it.
If you want to see how quickly the first part happens, the free starter turns your idea into a clickable demo of your app on your phone, in about seventy minutes, with no coding and nothing to install. No store required, which is rather the point.