Overview

Think of the App Publishing Wizard as your guided on-ramp to the Apple App Store and Google Play. In three short screens, it walks you through the things you need to understand before a build can be submitted:

1. How publishing works and what it costs.
2. The Apple and Google developer accounts you’ll set up.
3. What to have ready before you start.

The wizard is purely educational — it does not build, submit, purchase, or verify anything itself. Its job is to explain the process, then hand you off to the Publish Your App admin page, where you buy your plan, enter app details, and submit the build. Think of it as the briefing that gets you to the door, not the door itself.

This tutorial walks you through the wizard from the first screen to the hand-off, then points you toward what comes next.

What you’ll have at the end

• A clear picture of what publishing costs — the suite price, the yearly maintenance, and the Apple and Google developer-account fees.
• An understanding of the two developer accounts you’ll create and why they belong to you.
• A list of the assets to gather before you start (app name, icon, splash screen, permission messages).
• A clear hand-off to the Publish Your App page, where the purchase, app details, and submission actually happen.

One thing you won’t have yet: a published app. Buying the plan and submitting builds happen on the Publish page the wizard hands you off to — see What’s next below.

Prerequisites

• A WordPress site with MAM Main (and your app’s content plugins) installed and activated.
• Admin access to the WordPress dashboard.
• Your MAM account code, enrolled and verified. The wizard itself is just an explainer and doesn’t need it, but the Publish page it hands off to reads this code to check your plan and eligibility — so if your site isn’t enrolled yet, take care of that first.
• A way to pay for the publishing plan (the plan is purchased later on the WP Mobile App Manager store, not in the wizard).
• Time to create two external accounts (Apple and Google). You do not need them approved before finishing the wizard — the wizard only explains them.

Note: Pricing and the exact plan name shown in the wizard depend on your suite — it currently surfaces the GeoDirectory Suite package, but the plan on your site may be different. Trust the dollar figures on screen over this document; they’re the source of truth for your account.

Steps

1. Open the wizard

The first time you visit the Publish page, the wizard opens on its own — no hunting required:

Mobile App Manager → 🚀 Publish App

After that first visit, it won’t pop up on its own again — but you can reopen it any time from the Read how publishing works link at the top of the Publish App page.

The wizard opens on Step 1: How It Works, headed How App Publishing Works.

The wizard is education-only and always available — run it as many times as you like, it never changes any of your settings.

2. Step 1 — How app publishing works

This screen lays out how publishing works and what it costs — there’s nothing to buy or click through yet, it’s just the overview.

1. Start with the short summary: publishing puts your app in the App Store and Google Play under your own name and brand. You purchase the publishing suite, set up the two store developer accounts (they’re yours, not MAM’s), and MAM handles the technical side — building, signing, and submitting.
2. Then review the costs it lists:
   • The GeoDirectory Suite — $1,499, plus $299 per year for maintenance and updates (includes MAM Main, MAM GeoDirectory, and iOS and Android publishing).
   • Feature add-ons — extras like MAM Special Offers add their plugins to your total.
   • Apple Developer account — $99 per year, paid to Apple.
   • Google Play Developer account — $25 one-time, paid to Google.
3. Take note of the reassurance here: your exact total gets calculated later, on the Publish page, from the features your app actually uses — and nothing is charged until you check out on wpmobileappmanager.com.

When you’re ready, click Next: Developer Accounts →.

This screen only explains costs — it isn’t checking your plan or account against anything. That gate comes later, on the Publish page, where MAM verifies your subscription and your iOS and Android publishing eligibility before letting you submit.

3. Step 2 — About your developer accounts

This screen walks through the two external developer accounts you’ll set up. Both belong to you — MAM simply uses them on your behalf to submit builds.

Apple Developer Account

1. Apple requires a Company / Organization developer account (not an individual one).
2. Open the Apple Developer Account tutorial link on this screen and follow it to create or configure your account.
3. As the tutorial explains, invite the MAM team to your account so we can prepare your app for submission.

Google Play Developer Account

1. Google requires a Developer Account with a connected payments profile.
2. Open the Google Play Developer Account tutorial link and follow it to create your account.
3. Invite the MAM team so we can manage your Android submissions.

You do not need either account approved before continuing. Apple and Google both take time reviewing new developer accounts, and the wizard is built around that — keep going while that review sits pending. The final connection and verification happen later, on the configuration/Publish page, before your app is actually submitted.

Once you’ve reviewed both, click Next: Get Ready to Publish →.

4. Step 3 — Get ready to publish

This screen frames the Publish page as your home base going forward, and lists what to have ready before you start.

1. Here’s the framing to note: unlike this once-through walkthrough, the Publish page (MAM → 🚀 Publish App) sticks around, with a checklist that tracks every step — purchase, both developer accounts, and your app details — until your app is live in the stores.
2. Gather the assets it suggests having on hand before you begin:
   • Your app name, as it should appear in the stores.
   • Your app icon.
   • A splash screen image.
   • Short messages explaining why your app uses the camera, GPS, or contacts.
   • Basic listing details for the stores.
3. When you’re ready, click Open the Publish Page →.

Click it, and you leave the wizard behind for the Publish Your App admin page — the wizard’s job here is done.

What’s next

The wizard hands you off to the Publish Your App page — this is where the real work of submitting a build actually happens. There you’ll:

• Fill in app identity (app name, bundle/package ids, team id).
• Enter permission strings (camera, GPS, contacts) that Apple requires.
• Set version and build numbers (build numbers must increment with every submission).
• Save, then submit the publish request to the WPMAM build pipeline.
• Monitor build status as it appears in TestFlight (iOS) and Google Play (Internal Testing).

See Recipe: Publish your app to iOS and Android for the full Publish-page walkthrough.

If the Publish page reports an account-code mismatch, or won’t let you submit after you’ve purchased, that’s a verification issue to take to support — not something to work around in the wizard. Reach out with your account code.

Related

• Recipe: Publish your app to iOS and Android — the Publish-page walkthrough this wizard hands off to.
• Recipe: Customer enrollment and account code — needed before the Publish page can verify your plan.
• Recipe: Build an app end-to-end — where the publishing wizard fits in the larger build.