is it possible to publish the same app twice, separately for phones and for tablets

Question

I know it's better if there is only one app with different specifications for layout. But I have different drawable folders that doesn't fit into 50mb limitation, there is certain problem with having expansion files. So I kinda need to. But is it allowed? Will I pay for that?

Answer 1

From the docs:

Multiple APK support is a feature on Google Play that allows you to publish different APKs for your application that are each targeted to different device configurations. Each APK is a complete and independent version of your application, but they share the same application listing on Google Play and must share the same package name and be signed with the same release key. This feature is useful for cases in which your application cannot reach all desired devices with a single APK.

So there's no problem doing what you want. There's no extra charge for that, either. The docs go on to explain how you set up multiple APKs.