Developers Will Soon Get 25 Monthly Hours of Xcode Cloud With Apple Developer Program - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Developers Will Soon Get 25 Monthly Hours of Xcode Cloud With Apple Developer Program

Apple today announced that starting in January 2024, all Apple Developer Program memberships will include 25 compute hours of Xcode Cloud at no additional cost on top of the Developer membership fee.

Xcode Cloud icon
Xcode Cloud is designed to provide cloud-based tools to developers for building apps, running automated tests, providing apps to testers, and managing user feedback. It was introduced in 2021, and made available to all developers in June 2022.

Since launch, Apple has given developers access to 25 hours of Xcode Cloud per month at no cost, but that was scheduled to end this month. Apple has now decided to continue offering the free compute hours as part of its Developer Program membership.

We're pleased to announce that as of January 2024, all Apple Developer Program memberships will include 25 compute hours per month on Xcode Cloud as a standard, with no additional cost. If you're already subscribed to Xcode Cloud for free, no additional action is required on your part. And if you haven't tried Xcode Cloud yet, now is the perfect time to start building your app for free in just a few minutes.

Apple initially planned to charge $15 per month for 25 hours, but that tier will be free. 100 compute hours is priced at $50 per month, 250 hours is priced at $100 per month, and 1,000 hours is priced at $400 per month.

Each compute hour is an hour of time used to execute a task in the cloud, such as building an app or running tests. Compute hour usage is tracked through App Store connect and the Apple Developer app.

Tag: Xcode

Popular Stories

iPhone Handoff Feature

iOS 27 Introduces New 'iPhone Handoff' Feature

Wednesday September 2, 2026 12:35 pm PDT by
Apple has added a new "iPhone Handoff" feature to iOS 27 that will allow you to switch between two iPhones while using the same phone number on each device. This functionality was briefly mentioned during the WWDC 2026 keynote in June, on a slide that listed hundreds of new features coming in iOS 27 and corresponding software updates, but Apple never shared any further details at the time. ...
Dynamic Island iPhone 18 Pro Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Prices Estimated Ahead of Apple Event Next Week

Thursday September 3, 2026 3:41 am PDT by
Less than a week before Apple debuts new iPhone 18 Pro models, research firm TrendForce has estimated the prices of the devices based on the latest hardware cost environment. TrendForce's price estimates compared to last year's models look like this: Model Starting Price Model Starting Price Change iPhone 17 Pro $1,099 iPhone 18 Pro $...
Apple Foldable Thumb

iPhone Ultra's Very High Price and Features Revealed in New Report

Thursday September 3, 2026 7:33 am PDT by
Ahead of Apple's event on Wednesday, September 9, where it is expected to unveil its first-ever foldable iPhone, Taiwanese research firm TrendForce today outlined the device's estimated price range, features, and some other key details. In the U.S., TrendForce estimated that the foldable iPhone will have a starting price of $2,099 to $2,299 and said the highest-end configurations could...

Top Rated Comments

36 months ago
But no Xcode Copilot.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
36 months ago

Can someone please explain in 3 sentences a scenario where a developer uses this? Thank you!
Building an application for distribution on TestFlight or the AppStore is a tedious multi-step process. Building it in the Cloud means that a version of Xcode hosted at Apple does all of that work for you, letting you and your local Mac get on with other tasks. It can also run builds automatically, triggered by certain changes in your source code, catching potential build problems as soon as they arise.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bodhisattva Avatar
36 months ago

Makes sense to offer more benefits to Apple Developer Program members.

Especially when sideloading (which basically means free Apple Developer program) is coming soon.
Side loading will simply be a delivery method. Shouldn't replace the need to sign a build from an authenticated program member. In the early days of iOS development (and even with formerly allowed Enterprise license member) side loading was not an issue, but always still required a valid signed build. Doubt a free dev program is coming anytime soon.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bodhisattva Avatar
36 months ago

Can someone please explain in 3 sentences a scenario where a developer uses this? Thank you!
For enterprise size applications, this actually gives you a bit more iOS specific control over CI/CD process compared to products like TeamCity. For the one-man dev shop how follows the traditional process of code, build, test, repeat this will not do much really except possibly simplifying automation of your processes a bit easier then Jenkins, CircleCI, TravisCI, etc. or the complexity of writing Fastlane scripts. From an enterprise level however it seems just a little more Apple friendly that GitLab CI/CD, or many of the others out there.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
36 months ago
Makes sense to offer more benefits to Apple Developer Program members.

Especially when sideloading (which basically means free Apple Developer program) is coming soon.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
asdfjkl; Avatar
36 months ago
Most of the other cloud CI/CD offerings have similar free tiers. I think Apple was force into it by the market.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)