Who owns the mobile app you had built?
You should, and the answer turns on one detail almost nobody asks about before signing: whose Apple and Google developer accounts the app is published under.
Why the developer account is the whole question
An app on the App Store lives inside a developer account. Whoever holds that account holds the listing, the reviews, the ratings, the download history and the ability to push an update. The code matters less than people expect; the account is the asset.
If your app is published under your supplier’s account, then leaving them means starting a new listing at zero — no reviews, no installs, and every customer who has your app on their home screen keeps a version nobody can update. That is usually a larger cost than the rebuild, and it is rarely quoted.
What to ask before you commission anything
- Whose Apple Developer account will this be published under? The answer should be yours, and you should be the account holder rather than an invited member.
- Whose Google Play account? Same answer, and it is a separate account.
- Who owns the source code, in writing? Even if you never touch it, owning it means another studio can take it over.
- What happens to the app if we stop working together? If the honest answer is “it stops”, you are renting.
How TicApp does it
Every app is submitted under the merchant’s own Apple and Google accounts. We help set them up if they do not exist, and we are added as a member rather than as the owner. The practical consequence is that leaving us costs you the build and not the audience — which is the arrangement worth insisting on from anybody, including us.
The one thing you cannot own
The listing and the code are yours. The customers who installed it are yours. What is not transferable is momentum: a listing that has been live for two years with reviews on it ranks and converts better than a new one, which is exactly why the account question matters more than it sounds.