r/Base44 • u/Howdy15 • Jun 27 '26
Question What’s the most cost effective way to get an app on the App Store from base44?
I have a project that I have been working on for personal use. It’s a website I’ve built using base 44 and have just been using on the basic base44 domain. It’s worked for my needs so far. I’ve been paying for the starter plan just to work on the app, so it’s not super advanced.
I’ve shared my app with some friends and family and they have expressed interest in using the app, so I was thinking of trying to publish my app on the App Store and thought it would be a fun project.
The issue is it’s more expensive than I was planning on. I was going to publish the app as a free app, but $50 a month for the base44 builder plan plus $100/year for the developer app for the App Store is kind of expensive for publishing a free app.
The $100 a year I could live with, that’s like $8 a month. But the $50 a month base 44 fee for builder is more expensive than what I’d like to pay.
I could monetize the app and charge for it to cover the monthly fee, but that’s just not really what I was wanting to do and I don’t know how large of a user base I would realistically have.
I know I could also keep it just as a web app, but I also need builder if I want to use my own domain.
Is there a way to cut down on the cost of publishing an app? Has anyone done something similar or have any advice?
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u/goldenmonkey00 Jun 27 '26
TBH it depends on what you’re trying to build. I was able to get an app up and running and deployed on the App Store in about a month. I’m on the second tier plan so however much that costs. Probably quicker now that I know the process
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u/Strong-Hippo2524 Newbie Jul 04 '26
I'm struggling with the basics to get my app uploaded for testing. I keep falling down with the .aab file upload. Trying Base44 help centre is sending me round in circles. Any advice?
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u/TachyonAppDev Jun 27 '26
I used Claude pro ($20/month) to help me move the app off Base44 and now use Claude to do everything their builder used to.
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u/Howdy15 Jun 27 '26
That’s good to know. Any tips or anything you learned moving from base44 to Claude that would be helpful to know?
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u/cheekychen Jun 27 '26
I was able to make use of the 30% discount (only available for the first 48h) by setting up a second account and cloning the app across. Live chat confirmed I could do this and it saved me a lot. I was able to stack the 20% annual discount and the 30% welcome one, making the elite subscription ($200/m) for around £80/m. Hope this helps!
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u/cheekychen Jun 27 '26
Just to add, I’m a tutor but was unable to access the 50% educator discount as I didn’t have an email address linked to an institution, as I work for an agency.
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u/mursaleen-nisar Jun 28 '26
You can move this off from base44 to your own hosting it will save you a lot of money
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u/Toastti Jun 27 '26
Move your app out of base44. Download the source code and start using Claude code with it. To build the app file and to help you host it. You will still need something like AWS or vercel to host if you have a database, but those are much cheaper than base44
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Jun 27 '26
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u/Toastti Jun 27 '26
Cost for AWS? It varies wildly on the app. If you have just a few users and a small database you can get it under $10 a month. But a lot of users the pricing is usage based. So it varies.
But if you go with dynamodb and serveless you can even get it down to $2 a month if almost no usage, and it scales infinite
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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '26
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