I'm in the same boats, I have an app on play store but that dev verification thing will cost me around 90 euros where its not making me money even though its commercially driven still, I just can't be bothered to spend extra money for Google for their company verification requirements
(ps: I tried to get support about it and was willing to provide the company info just to keep getting on the platform, but the only answers that I got were "you must use this (non free) system to have your company verified" and then I tacitly said "screw this")