Bubble.io vs Microsoft .NET — A cost comparison of 9 quotes to build a custom application for an SME/SMB.

Introduction

A prospective client shared with me his analysis of quotes to build a boutique lead management system for a financial services firm.

My client’s spreadsheet. The currency is USD.

My prospect has over 20 years of experience building and maintaining custom applications using Microsoft for Small to Medium Business / Enterprise (SMB / SME).

The rejects

My prospect immediately discarded the 3x Bubble quotes above from Turkey, India, and Poland for one reason:

The Scope of Work lacked any form of detail.

They responded to his brief and said “We will build an app according to your spec for price ____”. No sign of thinking, analysis, or reflection. Sorry guys, but if you want the work, you’ve got to walk the journey.

This left 3x Bubble quotes, 2x .NET quotes, and one other no-code platform quote.

.NET vs Bubble

The $55k US-based .NET quote was my prospect’s internal team quote to deliver using Microsoft technologies, without any profit margin. The $72k quote was a competing agency’s quote to do this same, this time with margin. Both quotes were US-based with devs in India.

The prospect deemed three Bubble quotes to be “responsible” because they had actively shown scoping effort. The information provided to each company was detailed and equivalent.

Get Will Ericksson’s stories in your inbox

These came in at $45k, $26k, and $19k respectively.

Our PM Gregg analyzed the four Bubble quotes that were not outliers and determined there was a median of $25k and an average of $26k for Bubble.

The .NET quotes (if you add margin to the 55k quote) were both in the realm of 3x the value of the Bubble.io Median/Average.

Conclusions

One

In a detailed scoping activity performed by my prospect (a US-based Microsoft dev company outsourcing the dev work to India), on-shore Bubble teams were around one-third of the price of traditional dev, even engaging an external agency to build the project.

ONE THIRD. 33.33%. 1/3.

That’s why Bubble is growing upwards and to the right 📈🚀📈.

If you build on the Microsoft stack for SMB clients, you could literally outsource your work to companies like MomentumGroup.tech, sit back on the beach 🏝, and enjoy a sizable margin.

Crazy.

Two

Our company was the “lowest responsible quote” according to the prospect (we are “Australia” listed above). Great for us. However, it shows we are underquoting when compared to other teams with “onshore” management.

Building custom software has never been more accessible or affordable thanks to companies like Bubble.

Check it out.

And check us out at MomentumGroup.tech and Momentum Academy