Goal

This step has three parts: open a Google Play Developer account in your own name, connect a payments profile to it, and invite the MAM publishing team into your account as an admin. Once that invite is accepted, we can build, sign, and submit your Android app to Google Play on your behalf — the account, the app listing, and any revenue stay yours.

This article covers the Android half of the App Store accounts step in the App Publishing Wizard — the Apple side gets its own article (see Related).

Why you do this and we don’t. Google requires the developer account to belong to the business that owns the app — that’s you, not us. You create and own the account, then invite us in as an admin so we can handle the technical publishing work. We’re a guest in your account, never the owner, and you can remove us at any time.

Prerequisites

Before you start, gather:

• A publishing plan (for later). You’ll need an active publishing plan before you can actually publish — the Publish page checklist tracks this as a Required plugins purchased item, with a Purchase button that opens checkout on wpmobileappmanager.com. You don’t have to buy that plan before setting up your developer account, though: the checklist puts developer accounts first on purpose, so you can create the account and send the invite while your purchase (and store approval) are still working their way through.
• A Google Account to sign in with. Use a business Google Account you control long-term, not a personal one tied to an individual who might leave.
• The exact business/legal details Google will ask for — legal name, address, and contact email — and a credit or debit card for the one-time registration fee and the payments profile.
• The MAM publishing email address to invite. You’ll find this address on the Publish page checklist, next to a one-click Copy button — copy it from there rather than typing it out, so you invite exactly the right address. (Already seen an address in the checklist? That’s the one to use.)

Your account doesn’t need to be fully approved before you move on. The wizard itself notes you can proceed to the next step without waiting for approval — we finish verifying and connecting the account before your app is submitted.

Steps

1. Open the App Publishing Wizard

Start in WordPress admin: open the App Publishing Wizard and go to its Developer Accounts step. Under the Google Play Developer Account heading you’ll find a short explanation and a tutorial link (“Click here to open tutorial”) that opens our step-by-step signup tutorial in a new tab. Google reshuffles its console fairly often, so treat that linked tutorial as the authoritative source for the exact screens — this article sticks to the parts specific to working with MAM.

2. Register for a Google Play Developer account

Follow the linked tutorial to register at the Google Play Console. Along the way, Google will:

• Have you accept the Developer Distribution Agreement.
• Collect your account type and business/contact details.
• Charge the registration fee.

If you’re publishing on behalf of a company, choose an organization / business account type, and enter details that match your legal business information. Google may ask you to verify your identity and/or organization — start that verification early, since it can take a while.

3. Add a payments profile

Before Google will let an app go live, your developer account needs a connected payments profile — this is the billing identity Google uses for your account, covering any paid apps or in-app purchases later on. In the Google Play Console, complete the payments profile setup so it shows as connected to your developer account.

Even if your app is free with no in-app purchases, you still need a payments profile on the account — it’s part of setting up the account, not a charge to your users.

4. Invite the MAM publishing email as an admin

This is the step that actually lets us publish on your behalf.

1. Sign in to the Google Play Console at https://play.google.com/console/ — or use the Open Google Play Console button on the Publish page checklist, which takes you straight there.
2. Go to the Users and permissions area for your developer account.
3. Invite a new user and paste in the MAM publishing email you copied in the prerequisites.
4. Grant that user admin-level access (account-level permissions), so we can create the app, upload builds, manage the listing, and submit for review.
5. Send the invite.

The on-screen instruction in MAM mirrors this: “In Google Play Console, invite the email below as an admin so we can publish your app on your behalf.”

5. Tell MAM you sent the invite

Head back to the MAM Publish screen, and you’ll see the Google Play Developer account row showing the publishing email alongside a Copy button and an I Sent the Invite link.

Once you’ve sent the invite in Google Play, click I Sent the Invite. Doing so:

• Records the date you sent it and moves the Google Play row from “to-do” to a waiting-on-us state.
• Notifies the MAM team so we can verify the invite landed and accept it.

Once you’ve clicked it, the row reads roughly: “Thanks — we received your invite confirmation. We typically verify and connect within 1 business day. You don’t need to do anything else.” That’s it — there’s nothing more for you to do on the Google side.

6. (Optional) Continue without waiting for approval

Waiting on Google’s verification doesn’t have to stall you. Go ahead and keep filling in your app information on the Publish page — app name, description, icon, and launch screen. We verify and connect your developer account before the actual submission, so both tracks move forward at the same time.

How you’ll know it worked

Watch the Google Play Developer account row on the MAM Publish screen — it moves through three states:

Once the row shows connected, you’re done with the Google Play side of your publishing checklist.

Troubleshooting

• The Publish page won’t let me publish. That means you need an active plan — publishing requires it, and the checklist shows this as Required plugins purchased. Click the Purchase button on that checklist row, complete checkout on wpmobileappmanager.com, then come back and refresh the page.
• I can’t find where to invite a user. Look under Users and permissions at the account level in the Google Play Console — not inside an individual app. Both the Open Google Play Console button in MAM and the linked tutorial point you straight there.
• I invited the wrong address. Remove that user in Users and permissions, then re-invite using the Copy button on the MAM Publish screen so you’re pasting the exact publishing email.
• It’s been more than a business day and the row still says “waiting on us.” Reach out through the Need help? link on that checklist row, and we’ll check whether the invite actually came through.

Note on the publishing email. MAM configures this address on our side, and it can change per account — so always copy it fresh from your own Publish screen rather than reusing one from another site or an older screenshot.

Related

• Create your Apple Developer account and invite the MAM team — the iOS counterpart to this article.
• App Publishing Wizard overview — the three-step walkthrough (how it works → developer accounts → get ready).
• Enter your app information for submission — app name, description, icon, splash screen, and permission messages used by both stores.

Verification

This article was last verified against:

• mam-main/includes/setup-wizard/wizard-app-publishing.php — the App Publishing Wizard steps and Google Play account copy.
• mam-main/includes/publish-app/app-submit.php — build_developer_account_item() (Google config), the mam_invite_sent AJAX handler, the mam_google_invite_sent_at / mam_google_invite_email options, the to-do / pending / connected states, and the Google Play Console URL.

Re-verify whenever the wizard steps change, the developer-account checklist states or copy change, the publishing email option/filter changes, or Google reorganizes the Play Console signup or Users-and-permissions flow.