This chapter walks you through the complete path from a finished app to publishing it on Google Play – including the costs and the registration process.

Creating a Google Play Console account

Register at play.google.com/console with a regular Google account. Cost: a one-time 25 US dollars, no annual fee (unlike Apple). Google also now requires identity verification (ID/address proof) as well as a short "testing program" period with at least 12 testers over 14 days before an app becomes fully publicly visible ("Production") – this applies to new developer accounts since 2023.

Building the app: EAS Build

Instead of building locally with Android Studio, publishing usually uses Expo's cloud build service "EAS Build" (Expo Application Services) – it produces a finished, signed .aab file (Android App Bundle) without you having to manage a full local Android SDK with all its signing certificates:

npm install -g eas-cli
eas login
eas build:configure
eas build --platform android --profile production

EAS Build has a free tier (limited number of builds per month, usually enough for learning and hobby projects) as well as paid subscriptions for higher build frequency and priority in the queue.

Creating the store listing in Play Console

• App name, short description, full description (in German AND English if you want to offer multiple languages)
• At least 2 screenshots per supported device category (phone, optionally tablet)
• A store icon (512×512 px) and a feature graphic (1024×500 px)
• Privacy policy URL – a required field; even free apps that collect no data must link a (even minimal) privacy policy
• Content rating (an age-rating questionnaire, automatically generated from your answers)
• Target audience and content declarations ("Content rating", "Data safety" form about data collected)

Uploading and review

The .aab file is uploaded in Play Console under one of the release tracks ("Internal testing" for fast internal tests with no wait, "Closed testing", "Open testing", or directly "Production"). Google's review process usually takes a few hours to 2–3 days – noticeably faster than Apple.

Google Play cost overview