What fees are involved in publishing an android app?

Question

Im tossing up at the moment whether or not to start developing for iPhone or Android. The main thing drawing me towards Android at the moment is that apps are developed using Java, which I like, as opposed to Objective-C, which I hate.

Really though, the next thing on my list is to consider the costs. Apple requires you to join their iPhone developer program for $99/year, plus yield 30% of each sale of your app to Apple.

I noticed that google charges $25 to register as a developer. I wanted to confirm firstly, is that $25 recurring or is it just one off? Second, are there commisions charged when our apps are purchased, or do we recieve the whole sale price?

I also wanted to ask, does google provide an Android emulator that we can use to test applications without actually copying them over to an actual Android device?

Thanks so much everyone. Cheers.

Answer 1

$25 is one off.

Google takes 30% commission.

Yes, there's an emulator with the Android SDK.

You also can consider http://www.deviceanywhere.com/ for testing on multiple devices if you don't have many different devices and if testing on a real device is crucial for your app.