You technically don’t need to pay if you just want to run your app on your phone. If you want to distribute your app with Testflight or the App Store you need to pay.
As long as you're willing to re-sign and reinstall it every 7 days, that is. The free certificates Apple hands out have expiry set to a week, and AFAIK you can't configure your own iPhone to trust your own certificate.
As long as you're willing to re-sign and reinstall it every 7 days, that is. The free certificates Apple hands out have expiry set to a week, and AFAIK you can't configure your own iPhone to trust your own certificate.