I have been doing some Xamarin development at my new job for the past few months and I'm starting to feel more comfortable with it. My friend has a friend looking to get an app up and running for his business. I'm not too sure about all the details just yet, whether the app will be customer facing or just used for the one guy, but I was wondering if Xamarin would be a good way to approach this?

Can i develop in Xamarin for free with VS Community edition and push it out to the respective stores? Would I need to pay for a database (something cloud base like azure?) I've never built an app from the ground up like this but I think it'd be a good venture for myself at this point in my career and the extra cash would be nice too. I guess I'd just like to know what all this would entail as far as setup goes. also the upkeep costs and what not.

OR am I better off developing the app for iOS (native) only? (If he is only interested in the app to be used on an iPad?) I guess that would be more difficult considering I don't have a mac just yet.

Any and all advice/criticisms are appreciated. Thank you.