The Paid Applications Agreement is one signature, by one named person, and it has no undo button.

What is the Paid Applications Agreement?

It is a schedule bolted onto the membership agreement you already have. Apple's Agreements and Guidelines page lists it as Schedules 2 and 3 of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement and says that accepting the latest version in App Store Connect is what lets you offer paid apps and in-app purchases. The parent agreement, the one you accepted when you enrolled, governs membership and the distribution of free apps. Nothing about paid content lives in it.

The name is a mess, and that is Apple's doing rather than yours. The agreements page says Paid Applications Agreement. The App Store Connect Help page you use to sign it says Paid Apps Agreement. The row inside App Store Connect is labelled Paid Apps. Then App Store Connect Help's View agreements status page goes back to Paid Applications Agreement. The same page notes that the Apple Developer Program License Agreement is also known as the Free Apps Agreement, which is a fourth label for a document you have already signed. All four spellings were live on 21 October 2026.

The screen name has drifted too, and Apple's help pages have not caught up with each other. The page about signing the agreement tells you to select Business at the top of App Store Connect. The page about setting a price still tells you the Account Holder accepts the agreement in the Tax and Banking section. Business is what the tab says today. If a tutorial sends you looking for Agreements, Tax, and Banking, that is the same place under an older name.

One more thing belongs in the definition, because it decides how seriously to treat the signature. The agreement expires with your membership. App Store Connect Help says that if you renew a membership after it has expired, you have to agree to the Paid Apps Agreement again, and that the agreement must be active for you to submit or update paid apps and In-App Purchases. A lapsed renewal therefore freezes updates to a paid app you are already selling, not only new ones.

Apple, App Store Connect Help, Sign and update agreements, read 21 October 2026

What cannot happen until it is signed?

Pricing is the obvious one. App Store Connect Help's Set a price page says the membership Account Holder has to accept the Paid Apps Agreement before you can offer paid content, and that if the most recent version has not been accepted you can only offer your app for free. The pricing screen is not hidden from you. It simply has one option. On the same page, read 21 October 2026, Apple gives up to 800 price points by default, with a request process for 100 higher ones that reach $10,000, and a base country or region that generates comparable prices across 174 other storefronts in 43 currencies. None of that is reachable until the signature lands.

The money plumbing is the one that wastes a week, because it runs in a fixed order. App Store Connect Help's Enter banking information page says you need to sign a Paid Apps Agreement before you can add banking information at all, and that all required tax forms for the paid contract have to be submitted before Apple will process the banking. The Provide tax information page says the same thing from the other side: the forms appear only after the agreement is signed. So the sequence is agreement, then tax, then bank account. People who try to get the finance work out of the way first find there is nowhere to put it. Our walkthrough of the app store tax forms picks up at that second step.

A version bump blocks more than you would guess. When a new version of the Paid Apps Agreement is available, App Store Connect raises an alert, and Apple says you will not be able to create a new app or a new In-App Purchase until the Account Holder has agreed to the most recent version. Creating an app record is normally a two minute job at the start of a project. With an unsigned update sitting in the Business tab, it stops, and the error does not obviously point at a contract.

Changing your legal entity reopens all of it. App Store Connect Help says legal entity name and address are tied to the contracts attached to your membership, that you contact Apple to change them, that business documentation may be required, and that approved changes can take up to two weeks to appear in App Store Connect. Some updates generate a brand new Paid Apps Agreement to accept once the change finishes processing. Two of the documented statuses exist purely for this case, one where a new contract is needed under the updated entity and one where fresh banking or tax forms are. All read on 21 October 2026.

Who in the account can sign it?

The Account Holder. App Store Connect Help gives Account Holder as the required role on the signing page, with no alternative listed, and the accounts and roles overview says the Account Holder is the one who signs legal agreements, renews membership and creates developer ID certificates. Most App Store Connect roles can be given to several people. This one cannot: Apple states that only one person can be the Account Holder. If that person has left, the role transfer is the first task, ahead of anything to do with pricing.

The route is four clicks and a verification code. Select Business at the top of App Store Connect, open the Agreements tab, find the Paid Apps row, and click View and Agree to Terms. Apple warns you may be asked for a two-factor authentication code before you can continue, which matters when the Account Holder is a founder in another time zone and their phone is the only phone that will do. Read the terms, click Agree, and download a copy while it is in front of you. Apple marks the next part Important: once you have accepted, you cannot undo the action.

Viewing is wider than signing, which is the useful part of the permission split. The View agreements status page lists Account Holder, Admin or Finance as the roles that can read the terms, statuses and expiration dates, enter missing information and download PDF copies. Banking carries the same three roles plus a catch: if an Admin or a Finance user adds the banking information, the Account Holder still has to approve it in App Store Connect before it is processed. A finance contractor can do the typing. They cannot finish the job alone.

Apple, App Store Connect Help, Sign and update agreements, read 21 October 2026

Does Google Play have an equivalent step?

Yes, and it is a form rather than a second signature. The Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement, effective as of 15 September 2025, says in section 3.2 that it covers both products users can access for free and products users pay a fee to access. To charge that fee and be paid, the same clause requires a valid payments profile under a separate agreement with a payment processor, approval by that processor, and the profile kept in good standing. So the contract with Google already covers selling. The thing you still have to set up is the merchant side.

The timing is the other way round from Apple's. Play Console's own get-started guide makes accepting the distribution agreement step 2 of signing up, ahead of the US$25 one-time registration fee at step 3, so you accept it before any app exists. Apple splits the same ground across two moments: enrolment for free distribution, then a separate signature whenever you decide to charge. Three Play Console Help pages we read on 21 October 2026, Create a payments profile, Link a Google Play developer account to your payments profile, and Required information to create a Play Console developer account, do not use the word agreement once between them. The merchant setup is a form, not a contract.

Google's irreversible step sits somewhere else, and it is harsher than Apple's. Play Console Help says a Play Console and a payments profile can be linked only once, and that after they are linked they cannot be unlinked or changed. Getting it wrong means signing up for a new developer account with a new payments profile, paying the registration fee again, and transferring your existing apps across. The country on the profile cannot be changed either, and the bank account has to be registered in that same country. PO box addresses are refused. Our google play merchant account guide takes that setup field by field.

Payout mechanics differ enough to plan around. Google gives buyers two hours to cancel an app or game purchase, then charges the card and starts the payout clock. Orders processed, refunded or charged back between the 1st of a month and the end of it are paid out around the 15th of the following month, with no deposits initiated on weekends or banking holidays. The balance has to clear a minimum at payout time: US$1 for merchants paid in local currency, US$100 for merchants paid by USD wire transfer. Apple instead pays within 45 days of the last day of the fiscal month, over a threshold its reference page put at 40 USD by default on 21 October 2026. Every listed bank country and currency pairing on that page, the United States included, sat at 0.02 USD instead.

Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement, effective 15 September 2025, read 21 October 2026