One night I opened a spreadsheet to write down what it would cost to ship an app. Rork, free. Supabase, free. EAS, free. The column added up to roughly zero.
What the sheet didn't have was a column for when.
Small amounts still land on the same day, and some services never send a bill at all — they just stop, which is its own way of asking for money. Below is what I got from lining up the official pricing pages (checked on October 16, 2026) and re-sorting them by date. Prices change, so please read each page before you pay.
The numbers first, on one table
Every figure comes from the service's own page. Exchange rates depend on the day you pay, so I haven't converted anything.
| Service | Price | What triggers the bill (or the stop) |
|---|---|---|
| Rork Free | $0 | 35 credits a month in major markets; daily cap of 5 design credits |
| Rork Pro | $20 / month | 100 credits a month, no daily cap, resets on the anniversary of your first purchase |
| Apple Developer Program | $99 / year (local currency in some regions) | When you start submitting to the App Store |
| Google Play developer registration | $25, once | When you publish an Android app |
| EAS Free | $0 | Up to 15 Android and 15 iOS builds a month, low-priority queue |
| EAS Starter | $19 / month plus usage | When the free build allowance runs out |
| Supabase Free | $0 | 2 active projects; paused after 1 week of inactivity |
| Supabase Pro | From $25 / month | When you want to avoid free-tier limits and pausing |
Sources: Rork's Plans & Subscriptions, the Apple Developer Program page, Google's registration fee help, Expo pricing, and Supabase pricing.
Bills arrive in roughly the same order as the work
What surprised me was how closely the order of payments follows the order of the work.
- Building screens. Rork Free is enough, but the daily cap is stated as 5 design credits, so the day you get stopped comes before the day you get billed. I went through that cap in a separate piece on the daily limit.
- Wanting it on a real device. Your first bill is probably Rork Pro at $20. The docs say iOS builds and cloud simulator sessions are charged on top of the message that started them. This article separates the two balances.
- Going to the stores. Apple's $99 and Google Play's $25 land together. Whether you can delay Apple's fee while testing is covered in the Companion free-testing piece.
- The release crunch. EAS gives you 15 free builds per platform a month. That sounds like plenty, but the queue is low priority, so waiting time tends to bite before the count does.
- A few weeks after launch. This is when to check whether a free Supabase project has been paused during a quiet week.
So year-one costs don't spread evenly from January to December. They cluster right before you ship.
Two ways to add up the minimum
The arithmetic is simple, but splitting it by assumption makes the decision easier.
| Assumption | Breakdown | Total (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| Rork Pro for 3 months, ship on both iOS and Android | $20 × 3 + $99 + $25 | $184 |
| Rork Pro for all 12 months, ship on both | $20 × 12 + $99 + $25 | $364 |
EAS Starter and Supabase Pro aren't included, since this assumes you stay inside the free tiers. If you outgrow them, $19 and $25 a month are added respectively.
Apple's $99 repeats every year. Google Play's $25 is paid once. Only one of those two follows you into year two.
"Billed" and "stopped" are different problems
This is the part I almost missed. Each free tier ends differently.
| Service | What happens at the limit or after inactivity | Does money move? |
|---|---|---|
| Rork | Credits run out; wait for the monthly reset or change plans | Not unless you upgrade |
| EAS | After the free builds and updates are used, Starter is suggested | Not unless you upgrade |
| Supabase | A free project is paused after a week of inactivity | No bill, but your backend stops |
A pause with no invoice attached is easy to notice late. The screens open, but the data never comes back — and you can't catch that by watching the monthly total.
Put the date something stops on your calendar before the date something bills. That's the line I drew after this exercise.
Four calendar entries to make today
Turn the above into four lines in your calendar.
- The monthly reset date for the Rork free tier (the start of each calendar month)
- Your first-purchase date, once you start Rork Pro — that becomes the monthly renewal
- Your Apple enrollment date, as the anchor for the $99 renewal
- One week after the last time you opened your Supabase project
Dates that drift cost more later than big line items do. When you keep store apps running for a while, the payment that comes once a year is the one that slips out of memory.
Start with those four entries today. If your app begins earning, the next decision is covered in a breakeven analysis for a ¥100-a-month app, which might make a reasonable next step.