Apple — 1. Open your developer account
Enrolling in the Apple Developer Program. Start this first: it takes the longest.
Start this on day one. Apple verifies your company by hand and it takes one to two weeks. Everything else on this list takes minutes to hours; this is the only step that can hold up your launch, and it's entirely a waiting game once submitted.
Why the account has to be yours
Apple's App Review guideline 4.3(b) rejects "spam" — lots of near-identical apps published by one developer. A white-label product like this is exactly that shape. Publishing each client's app under their own account is the accepted way to build these, and it's what keeps your app from being caught in someone else's problem.
It also means you own your app. If you ever stop working with us, the app, its reviews and its users stay with you. You invite us in; you can remove us at any time.
Organization or Individual?
Enrol as an Organization if you possibly can.
| Organization | Individual | |
|---|---|---|
| Seller name on the App Store | Your company name | Your personal legal name |
| Needs a D-U-N-S number | Yes | No |
| Can invite team members | Yes | No |
| Approval time | 1–2 weeks | Often same day |
An Individual account shows your own name as the seller on your App Store listing, which looks wrong for an agency, and it can't have team members — so you'd have to share your personal Apple ID password with us. Organization avoids both.
The D-U-N-S number
Apple requires organizations to have one. It's a nine-digit business identifier from Dun & Bradstreet, used to confirm your company legally exists.
- It's free for Apple enrolment
- Allow up to 5 business days to receive it
- You may already have one — check before applying, as duplicates cause delays
Apply, or look yours up, at developer.apple.com/enroll. Apple links to the D-U-N-S lookup during enrolment.
Your company name, address and phone number must match your official registration exactly. This is the most common cause of rejection — an abbreviated street name or a trading name instead of the registered one is enough.
Enrolling
- Go to developer.apple.com/programs/enroll
- Sign in with an Apple ID that belongs to your company, not a personal one. Create a fresh one on a shared address like
apps@yourcompany.comif needed — this becomes your Account Holder, and moving it later is painful. - Turn on two-factor authentication (Apple requires it)
- Choose Organization and supply your D-U-N-S number, legal entity name and address
- Confirm you're authorised to sign for the company
- Pay the $99 annual fee
Apple may phone the number registered against your D-U-N-S to verify you. It's a real call from a real person — if nobody answers, enrolment stalls until they reach you.
While you wait
Nothing else here depends on Apple. Work through your website, Google Play and the rest — by the time Apple approves you, everything else can be finished.
Once you're approved
Two things, and then you can move on to creating the app and its keys.
Invite us as a developer. At appstoreconnect.apple.com → Users and Access → + → invite the email address we give you with the Admin role. Admin lets us create the app record, upload builds and manage TestFlight. It cannot remove you, change your bank details, or see your payment information.
Switch on API access. This one is Account-Holder-only — nobody else on the team can do it, including us, and it blocks everything downstream until it's done:
Users and Access → Integrations → App Store Connect API → Request Access
It's a one-time switch for the whole team, it costs nothing, and it doesn't expose your account. It just permits API keys to be created. Until it's flipped, that page shows a greyed-out button and no keys can be made by anyone.
What to send us
- Confirmation that you're approved
- Confirmation that you've invited us as Admin
- Confirmation that API access is switched on
Nothing sensitive at this stage — the keys come in the next step.