Yes, you need to pay the $99 to have a registered developer account, which is required to digitally sign apps to distribute through the App Store. Of course, yo

Yes, you need to pay the $99 to have a registered developer account, which is required to digitally sign apps to distribute through the App Store. Of course, you can download and use the dev tools for free, and distribute/sell your apps any way you like, without paying Apple anything. So if the App Store isn't worth $99 as a sales channel, don't pay it.