Both Apple Developer and Apple Enterprise certificates can sign an IPA — but they exist for fundamentally different reasons. Picking the wrong one means either paying too much, hitting device limits, or losing your install to a revoke at the worst possible moment.

The five-minute decision tree

  • Just testing on your own device, short-term? → Developer.
  • Distributing to a team, clients, or unknown users? → Enterprise.
  • Can't afford any chance of the app dying mid-use? → Developer (re-signed weekly).
  • Need install with no Apple ID prompts? → Enterprise (only option).
  • Have more than ~5 devices to support? → Enterprise.

Side-by-side comparison

FeatureDeveloperEnterprise
Apple ID needed on deviceYesNo
UDID registration neededYes (how to find)No
Max devices100 per Apple ID per yearUnlimited
Validity7 daysUntil Apple revokes
Revoke riskNoneHigh
Cost (this service)$99$259
Best forPersonal testingDistribution

The hidden tradeoff: revoke risk

Enterprise certificates look strictly better on paper — more devices, no Apple ID, longer validity. The catch is the revoke. When Apple kills an Enterprise certificate, every app signed with it stops working at the same moment, for every user, with no warning. Recovery means re-signing with a fresh certificate.

If you control the user experience and can push a re-signed update quickly, this is annoying but manageable. If you're a developer demoing an app to a client who can't be expected to reinstall, a revoke during the demo is a disaster. Choose accordingly.

What about the 7-day expiry on Developer?

It's not a bug, it's how Apple's Development program works. Every 7 days you need to re-sign and have the user reinstall (or use a tool that does it automatically in the background, like AltStore). For a single user testing their own app on their own phone, this is fine. For anyone else, it's painful.

Bottom line

Pick Developer if you're a developer testing your own work. Pick Enterprise for everything else where reach matters more than absolute uptime.