You are lucky, you already have an account you pay for. But for other users it will be a least 9$ a month for a “toy”/“my own logo”. And reality is - only few people is ready to pay for that 
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Our research showed that people (for non business) ready to pay ~$50 as one-time payment for app publishing. While publishing itself, even with ready accounts is more than 1 hour of manual work… So that makes it non-profitable. So we have what we have.