You have already built your app in WordPress — tabs, content, branding, and onboarding are all in place. Now for the last mile: setting up push notifications, testing on a real device, and sending your first iOS and Android builds off to the stores.

By the end you will have:

- A publishing plan purchased and your site connected to it

• Apple and Google developer accounts applied for and linked
• Push notification credentials wired up and verified with a test send
• A real build of your app installed and tested on your own phone
• iOS and Android builds submitted to App Store Connect and Google Play

Because this is your first full publish, we walk through every step here. Future releases reuse these same screens, and you will skip most of the one-time setup.

A note on how MAM publishing works. MAM Suite is the configuration layer — you fill in your app’s details in WordPress, and the WPMAM build pipeline handles the actual compiling and store submission for you. You do not need Xcode, Android Studio, or a Mac. You do need active Apple and Google developer accounts, because the apps ship under your name in the stores.

Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have:

- An app already configured in **Mobile App Manager** — tabs, content, app icon, and launch screens in place. If you have not built the app yet, do that first (see *Recipe: Build an app end-to-end*), then come back here.

• WordPress admin access (manage_options) on the site running MAM Suite.
• Your site connected to a MAM account code. The Publish page checks this against WPMAM on load; if it is missing, the publish controls refuse to run.
• A credit card or purchase authority for the publishing plan.
• About an hour of hands-on time, plus separate, unpredictable wait time for Apple and Google account approval and store review.

Step 1: Open the App Publishing Wizard

Head to Mobile App Mgr → 🚀 Publish App in WordPress — this is your home base for publishing — and follow the “Read how publishing works” link to open the App Publishing Wizard. It opens on a step titled “How App Publishing Works.”

The wizard itself is short and read-only — just a quick walkthrough of three informational steps:

- How app publishing works — what it is and what it costs

• About your developer accounts
• Get ready to publish

The wizard does not take any action on its own — the purchasing, the developer-account invites, and your app details all happen back on the Publish App page, which is where the wizard hands you off at the end. Read through the steps, then continue.

Step 2: Purchase your publishing plan

Publishing is a paid capability, so before anything ships, your account needs the right license. On the Publish App page, the setup checklist’s Subscription & add-ons row lists any plugins your app still needs — and until they are purchased, that row stays open and your setup shows as incomplete.

- Click **Purchase on WP Mobile App Manager** on that checklist row to open the store — the link already carries your account id and the exact plugins your app needs, so the purchase ties straight back to your site.

• Complete the purchase on the WPMAM store.
• Return to the Publish App tab.

Once the purchase is detected, the row flips to Required plugins purchased and your checklist progress moves forward. You shouldn’t need to reload — the page re-checks your subscription with WPMAM whenever the tab regains focus — but if it hasn’t caught up yet, a manual refresh will force the check.

Why the re-check? The page asks WPMAM whether your account can publish and caches that answer for a few minutes. Clicking the purchase button arms a forced re-check, so a purchase you made in another tab shows up without you having to reload manually.

Step 3: Set up your Apple and Google developer accounts

To ship to both stores, you need a developer account with each of them — the Developer accounts section of the Publish App checklist has one row for Apple and one for Google.

Apple Developer Account. Apple requires a Company / Organization account (not an individual account) for apps published this way, and their business verification can take a few days — so start it early. Follow the tutorial linked on the Apple row to create or configure your account. Then, in App Store Connect, invite the email shown on the checklist (there’s a Copy button and an Open App Store Connect button right there) as an admin, so we can prepare and submit your app under your account. Once you’ve done that, click I Sent the Invite.

Google Play Developer Account. Google requires a Developer Account with a connected payments profile. Follow the tutorial on the Google row to create yours, then send the same kind of invite in Google Play Console and mark it sent.

Once you’ve applied for both accounts and sent the invites, you’re free to move on — you don’t need to wait for approval here. Each row moves to “waiting on us,” and the MAM team verifies the invite and connects the account before anything gets submitted.

Keep these credentials safe. Your Apple and Google accounts stay yours. The MAM team is invited only as a collaborator to run builds — you remain the account owner and the legal publisher of the app.

Step 4: Get ready and move to app details

The wizard’s final step, Get Ready to Publish, is a short checklist of what to have on hand before you fill in the form:

- 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, location, or contacts
• Basic listing details for the stores

The actual build and submission are handled for you. The Publish App page’s own checklist tracks your real progress — purchase, both developer accounts, and your app details — as you complete each one.

When you’re ready, click Open the Publish Page — this takes you to the Publish App page, where the real configuration happens.

Step 5: Set up push notifications

Wire up push notifications before you submit a build, so your first build ships push-capable instead of needing a re-submit later. Push setup lives in Mobile App Mgr → App Settings → App Store Keys and Settings.

You will need two credentials issued from your developer accounts:

- **Apple (APNs):** In Apple Developer → **Keys**, create a key with **Apple Push Notifications service (APNs)** enabled. You will use its 10-character key id, your team id, and the key file itself (download it immediately — it cannot be re-downloaded).

• Google (FCM): In the Firebase Console → Project Settings → Service accounts → Generate new private key, download the service-account JSON, and note your Firebase project id.

Then, on the App Store Keys and Settings screen:

- Enter your **iTunes bundle id**, **team id**, and **push notification certificate ID** (the APNs key id), and **upload the APNs push notification certificate** file. The bundle id must match the one you submit to App Store Connect.

• Enter your Firebase project id and upload the Firebase service-account JSON for Android.
• (Optional) If your app uses CallKit-style incoming-call wakeups, it needs separate VoIP push credentials. Standard push and VoIP are different topics and need different credentials.

Now confirm it works: Mobile App Mgr → Notifications Manager, send yourself a test notification, and check the result under Sent Messages. (A self-test only works once the app is on your device — see Step 7 — so you may want to send it right after installing.)

For the full credential walkthrough, see Recipe: Configure push notifications.

Step 6: Enter app details on the Publish page

On the Publish App page (Mobile App Mgr → 🚀 Publish App), you’ll fill in everything the build needs. The page first re-checks your account code against WPMAM, and if that fails, the publish controls stay locked.

Fill in, then Save App Settings:

- **App Store Information** — your **app name** and **app description**, used for both the App Store and Google Play listings.

• iOS Permission Descriptions — the user-facing text iOS shows when the app asks for camera, location, photos, and contacts access. Apple will reject builds with empty or vague wording here, so take a moment to write a real sentence for each (for example, “We use your location to show nearby listings”). Sensible defaults are pre-filled.
• App Icon — a 1024×1024 PNG plus a background color, if not already set.
• Launch Screen — auto-generated from your icon and background color, or a custom splash image you upload.

The App Identifiers & Versions panel — iOS and Android bundle ids, team id, and the version and build numbers — is read-only here. WP Mobile App Manager manages these for you, incrementing the build number on each submission, so there’s nothing for you to type.

Click Save App Settings to lock in your entries.

Bundle id and package name are forever. WPMAM assigns them, and they’re frozen on purpose — once an app exists in App Store Connect or Google Play under a given id, changing it would orphan that store listing. That’s why they’re managed for you instead of left open to edit.

What’s next

Your first build is on its way. From here:

- **Iterate.** Every future release just means updating your details on the Publish page, saving, and submitting again — WPMAM takes care of incrementing the build number. The setup steps here are one-time; you won't repeat the plan purchase or account setup.

• Deepen push. See Recipe: Configure push notifications for VoIP, opt-out handling, and sending notifications programmatically.
• Review the publish reference. Recipe: Publish your app to iOS and Android documents every option key, the Fastlane extension hook, and common build failures in detail.
• Keep credentials current. Apple APNs keys and certificates expire, so renew them before they lapse to avoid a push outage.

If a build fails or a submission gets rejected and the reason isn’t obvious, reach out to MAM support with the status shown on the Publish page — that’s usually all we need to track down the problem.

Related articles

- *Recipe: Build an app end-to-end*

• Recipe: Publish your app to iOS and Android
• Recipe: Configure push notifications
• Recipe: Customer enrollment and account code