What is Bubble? And how difficult is Bubble to learn?
When you look to create your own app, mobile apps, or website you must consider which technology stacks you should build on. If you are a non-technical founder, learning how to program may not be feasible for you.
Bubble.io is a no-code platform that allows you to build sites and apps with a powerful visual editor and in-house database. No external databases are needed for your no-code app. Your Bubble app or business can be extremely complex and intuitive as Bubble supports more advanced capabilities than other traditional no-code platforms. We highly suggest building on Bubble over other no-code platforms.
If you're looking to develop an app, there are three things you need to focus on when using the software and platform to build and create your Bubble apps:
- The Bubble database
- Bubble UI/Frontend design
- Bubble workflows
- External integrations with plugins or API
When you master each of these fundamental concepts, you become a great Bubble developer and can easily build powerful no-code apps using the platform.
Speaking from our own experience, learning Bubble can be challenging. Because of its powerful features, Bubble can be hard to learn with a high learning curve. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as Bubble can support complex web applications and new users can build powerful no-code apps.
The one thing we suggest when learning Bubble is to connect with experts or founders of other apps to learn best practices. Bubble.io coaching can drastically improve your personal learning.
Bubble pricing in 2023
Like any other startup, Bubble pricing plans change throughout the years. This review and guide on Bubble apps and pricing plans is from Feb 2023, and we'll make sure to keep this post updated any time Bubble updates their features and/or pricing.
Let's dive into Bubble's pricing and how much money you can be expecting to pay per month for your production app.
Like many SaaS platforms, Bubble differs in pricing whether you pay annually or per month. The only difference is how much you pay for your app. The features, support, and security are the same regardless.
At this point in time, Bubble offers four plans with different sets of paid features:
- Free Plan
- Personal Plan
- Professional Plan
- Production Plan
- Custom
Free plan
Bubble's free plan is generous in the fact that the software allows you to almost fully build out your app without the need to pay money and upgrade to a paid plan. You're able to develop your app almost fully, although you will not be able to deploy the live version.
One key downside of building on Bubble's software using the free plan is that you cannot use APIs. You can still, however, write and build out the APIs - they just won't run. Meaning you cannot test them. This is a slight impediment to the free plan.
You are most welcome to code your app in Bubble up until you are ready to launch, and then upgrade from the free plan to a paid one. With a free build you will not be able to use a custom domain.
Pricing: Bubble's free plan is, well, free.
Personal plan
The personal plan is our recommendation for most business and applications that are trying out the Bubble platform. It's the next step up from the free plan and has all the features you most likely need for an MVP.
The personal plan unlocks the use of a custom domain, allows you to access backend workflows, and ultimately allows your team to launch an app with the basics needed. One thing of note is that the server capacity on the personal plan is basic and shared among other Bubble applications.
Enrolling in the personal plan also provides you with email support so that you can get your questions answered and problems addressed by the Bubble support team.
We recommend almost all of our clients to start with the personal plan first, and then monitor your logs and usage after launch to gauge if you need a higher tier.
If you're developing with a team, the next tiered pricing plans may suit you better. They offer everything a personal plan does (such as a custom domain) and of course, extra features.
Pricing: $25 per month if paid annually, or $29 per month if paid monthly.
Professional plan
Bubble's professional plan is a big step up both in terms of features and unfortunately speaking, the cost you'll pay per month. However with that said, the professional plan is geared towards teams.
With this plan, you get everything the personal plan offers plus more. For instance, the server capacity on the professional plan is much better than the prior personal plan. Here, you'll receive 3 units of server capacity, with the ability to add on an extra 7 units. Ultimately this boils down to opening up your app to have higher bandwidth for concurrent workflows.
This Bubble plan also provides email support but the biggest step up is the collaborator edition.
With the professional plan, your Bubble application can have two editors - meaning two developers can create at the same time. This is huge for team development. Additionally, you can have two development versions. Typically speaking, a business will have one development version for hot fixes, while using the other for longer-term roadmap builds.
Pricing: $115 per month if paid annually, or $129 per month if paid monthly.
Production plan
A production plan is recommended for apps that have been live for quite some time and have garnered a lot of usage. Additionally, production plans offer an extra sense of security with dedicated server capacity - meaning your application will not share server space with other applications, and will also retain Bubble versions (Bubble will not automatically upgrade a version or deploy updates to your instance).
Typically speaking, a business will use the production plan when they need extra security against downtime, and to have a siloed instance of their application and data.
With this plan, you can have up to 15 application editors and up to 20 development versions. The server capacity is high with up to 10 units, although you may purchase up to 30 for an additional price.
This plan is more for enterprise level applications that have heavy resources, and are not just a simple app idea that is being launched and validated. If you're building a enterprise level application and need that extra capacity, dedicated instance, and security, this plan is for you.
Pricing: $475 per month if paid annually, or $529 per month if paid monthly.
Bubble pricing - bottom line
As stated, we suggest to almost all of our clients to start with the personal plan first. Make use and access your logs to see how your app functions post-deployment. Use analytical software to understand how a particular user or users are affected with the server capacity your application is running on. Also note that storing data in the Bubble database has a limit in the sense of storage. In the image below, you can see how file storage expands as you get on the higher tiered plans.
Only when needed should you upgrade your plan. Also, it's worth noting that you can test out expanding and increasing your server capacity (using trial unit boosts) to see the effects on your workflows. Bubble works for just about any application, and users should always test out the personal plan first on the platform before upgrading.
Understand that your data and security are the same no matter which plan your app is using. The major differences for your app or website is bandwidth (concurrent workflow speeds), collaborations, and development versions.
