Introduction

Bubble.io announced its long-awaited update to its pricing model on April 6, 2023. This article covers the implications of the change, and what it means for current and potential customers.

Background

Bubble.io is an all-in-one, full-stack solution for building web apps. In our experience, web development with Bubble is 3-5x faster than building custom apps with code. Bubble is a visual programming language referred to as a “no-code” tool, rolling back end, front end, and cloud hosting in a single tool that is accessible to those without a programming background. Thanks to Bubble, it is now possible for single developers or small teams to build custom web applications that would have taken a large team and a 7 or 8-figure investment with traditional coding.*

Bubble is an example of a vertically integrated product. Software and hardware are managed by Bubble, so small teams can focus on developing business logic, interfaces, and data structures, while Bubble takes care of everything “under the hood” including database optimization, cloud architecture, many aspects of security, and maintaining code to utilize contemporary libraries and frameworks.

Bubble is a mission-driven company, and they are making a huge impact. They are making the creation of both software and the founding of technology businesses a possibility for millions of people around the world who would otherwise not have had the skills or funds to do so.

Pricing change drivers

Bubble’s pricing change is moving from a fixed capacity model to a consumption-based model. They have effectively placed a markup on the AWS cloud services that their apps run on, which covers the cost of the product and service provided by Bubble’s team. This is how you would pay for your app if you built it directly on AWS. Bubble’s former pricing model was not great for Bubble and also not great for customers.

Engineering solutions for Bubble’s pricing model - in the past

MomentumGroup.tech has built over 35 applications on Bubble. We have engineered our solutions around Bubble’s former pricing model. In particular, we’ve avoided ever “maxing out” our app’s capacity which resulted in reliability issues, particularly in the area of silently failing backend workflows. We’ve also been “greedy” and not all that concerned about minimising capacity usage, so long as our apps stayed within the capacity of their pricing plans.

Bubble’s new pricing model has the option of being elastic, which means that the many hours of engineering we have spent to keep resource consumption flat (and not spiking resulting in the error “your app has reached max capacity”) can now be redirected back to building the solutions our client’s businesses require. So what if there is a temporary spike in capacity every 24hrs when we run that workflow? We’ll just pay for it and be able to build more simple solutions that we know will scale.

Engineering solutions for Bubble’s pricing model - in the future

Now the rules have changed, Bubble developers will be much more aware of the costs of running their apps thanks to the new charts in the Log tab, and therefore optimise for cost around the new pricing model. The good news is that the pricing model rewards efficiency and many apps that we’ve built in the past can be engineered to be many times more efficient now that we have visibility and and incentive to optimize.

This might look like running a heavy workflow for analytics monthly not daily. It might look like syncing customer data with an external CRM daily not hourly. The good news is that many of these choices are in our hands. Another positive of the new model is that the cost of cloud storage is significantly lower.

Bubble’s former pricing model

Bubble’s former pricing model was cheap. Some may disagree, which I believe is largely related to purchasing power differences between economies, but for what Bubble offers, they have been almost “giving it away”. The new pricing model allows Bubble to improve its profitability, which in turn allows them to continue to develop its product and service, which is really needed right now.

As it stands, Bubble has been giving people something for free (or very cheaply), and then as soon as their customer’s Bubble Apps reach maturity, Bubble has not offered (at least not for all use cases) features that would keep them on Bubble long term. This is crazy from a business perspective, effectively prioritizing the non-paying customers over the paying ones. Consider the following.

Not your typical SAAS

At MomentumGroup.tech, we can complete a $50,000 or $100,000 project over 3-6 months (we build a Bubble app on behalf of a client), and Bubble the company ends up with a client paying them $129 USD to $529 per month*. If I were one of Bubble’s investors, and I were in the typical VC presona (wanting a 50-100x return in 3,5,7 years) - this is really bad news.

Compared to say Figma, Slack, Atlassian, Google Business etc - where I can easily dial-up a $300, $400, $500 monthly bill with a few clicks, it either takes a lot of time, effort and cost for a Bubble customer to need to pay this kind of money if they ever get there. Imagine if you had to pay $50,000-$100,000 before you could use Jira or Gmail at your small company?

Worse, being a founder takes a good deal of tenacity (or perhaps stupidity) that is lacking (or perhaps smartly avoided) by most people. This limits the Total Addressable Market (TAM) in the founder community. (will-ericksson.medium.com), but they also need someone to help them leverage its value. A potential customer of Bubble has to be really committed to becoming a paying customer.

Bubble drives success

Now the upside Bubble creates for its customers is huge, but so is the effort required. Many crestfallen Bootcamp students I’ve taught or potential clients head back to their day jobs upon this realization. Building on Bubble is rewarding, but it is no get-rich-quick scheme.

One group that is poised to grow significantly are aspiring Bubble developers in emerging economies who can offshore their skills at rates well above local employment markets. Live outside of the USA or Europe and want to earn 2-5x your peers? (momentumgroup.tech)! Once founders realize that there are many amazing, opportunity-hungry people offshore who can help realize their Bubble dreams, I forsee the pairing of founders and developers who can realize the value of Bubble in a win-win situation.

Mission-driven, slow burn, deep moat

Therefore I believe that Bubble’s investors already share the same mission-driven focus as their founders, and be taking a long-term view on Bubble building a formidable and feature-rich solution. They are banking on more people like me deciding “Hey this is actually really awesome” and “Let’s make the effort to build our products and business on Bubble long term”.

It’s been 10 years to get to this point, and it will still be a slow burn to keep growing, but this is also a moat for Bubble that not many others will be able to compete with. Bubble’s moat is their customer’s success.

Pricing changes are reasonable

Bubble can, and Bubble will - own this space in 10, 20 and 50 years - as long as they keep innovating and gently convincing the ecosystem that their value proposition is too good to overlook. So Bubble’s pricing model is actually just a way of Bubble actually getting back a little more of what it deserves for the huge value it has created for so many.

Bubble was already many times cheaper than equivalent enterprise no-code tools, who charge 10x license fees AND per head costs for every user of the solutions you create. This per-head difference alone is incredibly significant. With other no-code low-code solutions, you spend money to implement your solution AND you pay per head for every user who uses it.

Bubble was and still is an insane value multiplier, in the right hands. And that’s just the point. I hope for Bubble’s investors that many more of the “right hands” start to adopt Bubble, and that Bubble really becomes the choice of founders, SME/SMBs and enterprises everywhere for driving innovation and tech adoption.

There has been considerable debate in the forum about the extent of the pricing increase. Further details will emerge in the next month that will clarify the exact mechanics of workload units.

Green shoots

The news that might be missed by many - particularly if this announcement threatens their business model - is that Bubble is using its funding and profits to invest in features that will keep your product on Bubble long-term, at scale, and even service enterprise-level customers across more industries.

We’ve already seen the release of the new Version Control system which is a significant step forward. The auto-scaling nature of the new pricing model is also a huge step forward, in that it will simplify engineering Bubble apps around the previous plan’s limitations.

Bubble’s (bubble.io) identified other “scaled-up” or enterprise-friendly features in the pipeline, many of which I’ve identified (blog.momentumgroup.tech). Bulk data operationsHosting in multiple AWS regionsBetter options for Mobile solutions / Progressive Web AppsTechnical SEO enhancementsCloud infrastructure improvements

Conclusion

Bubble has given me, a registered nurse, with a passion for tech, turned data analytics engineer, turned entrepreneur and business owner - a path that otherwise would have been much longer and paved with early mornings learning about cloud, programming, infrastructure, etc before I ever got close to solving a business problem. Bubble has made a real way forward for me to make a difference in my life and those around me.

No one likes being told that something might cost more, including me. But Bubble needs to price its product and service in a way that is a win-win for customers and for the company in order to be sustainable and to achieve its mission. Remember, most things can be optimised including your app’s capacity usage, so it shouldn’t be a significant material change so long as you engineer for the new model, not the old model. Happy product building!

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