Bubble (bubble.io) is a legitimate, long-running visual no-code platform from Bubble Group, Inc. in New York, now topped with an AI layer that drafts the app for you. You build a web app, a native iOS and Android app, or both inside one project, and you pay per app rather than per user. Building and testing cost nothing. Going live starts with Bubble's Starter plan (Web) at $32 per month billed annually or $39 per month billed monthly, per app [1]. Our verdict: worth the fee for data-heavy apps with real business logic, provided you accept two hard terms. There is no code export. There are no refunds.
Four tools on one canvas, with an Agent on top
Bubble joins four things that other stacks split apart. A drag-and-drop editor lays out responsive pages on a flexbox engine. A built-in PostgreSQL database holds data types, option sets and files, and you never write SQL against it. Workflows carry the logic: frontend ones fire while a page is open, backend ones run on the server as API endpoints, schedules or database triggers. Plugins and the API Connector reach outside services. Every app keeps separate Development and Live databases.
Since June 2025 a project can hold a web app, a native mobile app or both, sharing one database and its backend workflows. The phone side runs on React Native rather than a wrapped web page, though web pages must be rebuilt as mobile views. Bubble's pages still label the mobile builder beta in November 2026, and Face ID and offline mode were unsupported as of September 2026. Our mobile guide covers store releases under your own Apple and Google accounts.
App generation turns a prompt into pages, a database with sample data, workflows, privacy rules and sign-in flows in about 10 to 15 minutes, Bubble said in September 2026, longer for complex prompts, and it currently spends no AI credits. The AI Agent then edits the app from chat; Agent 2 left beta in October 2026. Its output is visual Bubble logic you can inspect by hand, though it still declines custom events and payment actions in backend workflows. In August 2026 Bubble's co-CEO conceded the Agent trailed Lovable in conversation, a trade our Bubble vs Lovable comparison weighs.
Plan by plan: what one app subscription buys
Every price is per project, so ten projects need ten plans. Bubble's Growth plan and Bubble's Team plan sit above Starter on three tabs, each billed monthly or per month on an annual commitment. Enterprise is quoted by sales. The pricing page shows only per-month figures, and annual billing commits you to the full year with no refunds, so check the term before the price.
Prices shown are what Bubble lists for visitors in the United States, in US dollars. Your price can differ by country, currency and local taxes such as VAT.
| Tab (per app, per month: billed annually / billed monthly) | Starter | Growth | Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web | $32 / $39 | $119 / $134 | $349 / $399 |
| Mobile | $42 / $49 | $169 / $199 | $449 / $529 |
| Web & Mobile | $59 / $69 | $209 / $249 | $549 / $649 |
Each tier bundles monthly workload units (WU) and AI credits: Free 50K WU and 500 credits, Starter 175K and 1,000, Growth 250K and 2,000, Team 500K and 4,000. App editors are a plan feature rather than purchasable seats, with one on Free and Starter, two on Growth and five on Team. Growth adds custom branches, two-factor authentication for app users and advanced security checks. Team adds sub apps, scheduled deployments and custom alerts.
Bubble's Free plan costs $0 on every tab and stays in development: no live version, no custom domain, Bubble branding, 200 database things. The switch advertises saving up to 20% annually, yet by our arithmetic real savings run from about 11% on Growth (Web) to about 18% on Starter (Web), where twelve months cost $384 per app billed annually against $468 billed monthly. The only trial gives new apps 14 days of Starter if started within 10 days of creating the app, holds $1 on your card and converts to paid Starter unless canceled. Agencies can buy an Agency account at $78 per month per seat, billed annually, which cannot deploy apps live.
How workload units turn into an invoice
Workload units meter server work: searches, database writes, API calls, scheduled workflows, uploads and emails. Showing or hiding elements costs nothing. The meter runs per app and per calendar month, Development counts too, and web and mobile in one project share the pool. Nothing rolls over. The manual lists starting costs, such as 0.15 WU per page load, but one visible action can trigger several billed operations. Only the app's own metrics give an honest forecast.
Past the allowance, paid plans keep the app online at $0.30 per 1K WU, on by default and invoiced separately each month. Switch overages off and the app goes offline at its limit until you re-enable overages, buy a tier or the next billing period starts. Workload tiers cut the rate: Tier 1 adds 200K WU for $26 per app per month with an annual plan, or $29 with a monthly one. By our arithmetic it beats the default overage once the extra need passes about 87K WU a month on the annual tier, or about 97K on the monthly tier. Free and Agency apps get neither tiers nor overages. Our Bubble pricing breakdown runs every tier.
The Logs tab breaks workload down by page, workflow, element and expression, so a costly search shows up before the 75% usage email arrives.
AI credits are a separate allowance for the Agent, page and image generation and test data. They refresh on the 1st without rolling over, and running out never touches the live app's WU. Extra packs are one-time purchases on paid plans only, at $10 per 1,000 credits, expiring six months after purchase. Watch two traps the manual names: a recursive workflow without a stop condition can drain a month's WU, and unauthenticated public endpoints can burn it on traffic you never invited.
The AI Agent creates privacy rules for data types it builds, and Bubble says to review them before going live; the security dashboard is available from Starter.
Where Bubble draws hard lines
The app never leaves the platform
Bubble apps run only on Bubble. Its manual states that the app cannot be exported as code, so moving elsewhere means rebuilding the logic [2]. You can carry out data as CSV (Starter and up), JSON or NDJSON, and Bubble's FAQ mentions a raw JSON export of the app's logic as migration help; full app configuration export needs Bubble's Growth plan. Through the Bubble MCP (beta) an AI agent can recreate the design in code, without guaranteed fidelity. Bubble also states it would release its source code under an open-source license if it ever shut down.
Billing that forgives nothing
Subscription charges are non-refundable, a converted trial is not refunded, and AI credit purchases are final [3]. Annual plans renew for another year unless canceled at least 30 days before the anniversary, and leaving early does not end the commitment. A canceled plan runs to the end of its period while the live app keeps consuming WU, then loses its paid features, including the custom domain connection.
Curve, compliance and hosting
Expect to study. Bubble admits visual development has a learning curve and says fluency takes a few weeks. Bubble says its platform is SOC 2 Type II compliant, but that does not transfer to your app, and without privacy rules any data sent to a device can be read. Self-serve hosting sits in the US; region choice, a dedicated instance, SSO and an uptime SLA are Enterprise features.
The October 2026 security incident
Bubble's preliminary root-cause analysis, published in November 2026, says an attacker got partial access to Bubble's production systems and some user data in October 2026, through a platform vulnerability and infrastructure needing updates, including private plugin data such as credentials plugin developers had saved in the plugin editor [4]. It also targeted individual apps through platform issues that reached stored credentials or data even in correctly set-up apps, and through settings such as privacy rules that granted access; affected owners were contacted. Bubble says its review had not shown app databases or user files being read via internal-system access, and a final RCA will follow. Containment disrupted plugins, uploads and mobile deploys for several hours.
Bubble refunds no subscription charges, and canceling an annual plan early does not end the yearly commitment; cancel at least 30 days before the anniversary to stop renewal.
Scoring Bubble against the complaint record
Our score weighs each axis on its own evidence. Bubble lands at 3.8/5, rewarded for depth: a real database, server workflows, native mobile from the same project and an Agent that edits the visual app instead of replacing it with code. It is held back by a meter you can only estimate, no code export, billing without refunds and an incident still under forensic review.
Bubble (bubble.io) is a mature visual development platform that covers the whole job in one editor: a drag-and-drop editor with a responsive engine on CSS flexbox; a built-in database on PostgreSQL (data types, option sets, files) protected by server-side privacy rules and never queried in SQL; frontend workflows plus server-side backend workflows (API, scheduled, recurring, database triggers, custom events); plugins and the API Connector; hosting, one-click deploy and a custom domain (Starter and up), with separate Development and Live environments and databases. One project can hold a web app, a native mobile app or both, sharing the database, backend workflows and API connections; native apps are built on React Native, not wrapped web pages, and Bubble builds and submits to the App Store and Google Play from the editor without a Mac or Xcode on a Mobile or Web & Mobile plan (Starter and up), with over-the-air updates for text, design and workflow changes. Version control comes as Basic (savepoints and the Main branch, Starter and up) and Premium (custom branches, guided merge, hotfix off Live and a changelog; Growth: 10 branches, Team: 25, Enterprise: 150); a security dashboard checks the app from Starter; sub apps and scheduled deployments sit on Team. Published hard limits are generous for most apps (searches with sorting return at most 50,000 things, up to 1,000 custom data types, the Data API and Workflow API at 15,000 requests a minute on Starter, 25,000 on Growth and 35,000 on Team). Enterprise adds a dedicated instance with a choice of hosting region, static IP, direct read-only database access and an uptime SLA. Held back by: no code export (apps run only on Bubble; data exports as CSV, JSON or NDJSON, and an AI agent can rebuild the app in code through the Bubble MCP beta without guaranteed fidelity); the native mobile builder is labelled beta as of November 2026, with no offline mode and subscriptions as the only in-app purchases; Bubble says its architecture is primarily client-side, with server-side rendering on the roadmap and workflow branching and loops still in alpha (October 2026); Development branches share one database; self-serve apps run on shared US hosting, with region choice reserved for Enterprise.
Bubble AI has three parts: app generation from a prompt, the AI Agent that edits the app from chat, and the visual editor; the AI produces Bubble visual logic, not code, so everything it builds stays editable by hand. App generation asks clarifying questions, shows a plan with a live preview and then generates pages, a database with sample data, workflows, privacy rules and full sign-up and login flows, and the pricing FAQ says app generation does not currently require credits. Agent 2 (out of beta, October 2026) edits pages, elements, data types, expressions, frontend and backend workflows and API Connector calls from plain language, searches and installs plugins, plans with Ask, Auto or Approve modes, keeps several chat threads, takes voice prompts, checks its work with the issue checker and screenshots, and reads app data only when an owner or admin enables it; Bubble says Agent 2 builds what the user asked more reliably than the first Agent (October 2026), and that Claude Sonnet 5 runs across the editor since September 2026. The Bubble MCP (beta, October 2026, every plan) lets Claude, Claude Code, ChatGPT, Codex and GitHub Copilot in VS Code create or edit a Bubble app as regular elements, workflows and data types without spending Bubble AI credits, and a universal import (beta, some users) turns a codebase ZIP into a Bubble app. AI credits are included on every plan (Free 500, Starter 1,000, Growth 2,000, Team 4,000 a month on every tab and term; the pricing page lists unlimited AI credits on Enterprise), one-time packs cost $10 per 1,000 credits on Starter and up, and out of credits the visual editor keeps working while the running app is unaffected. Held back by: the manual lists what the Agent cannot build (custom events, database trigger events, payment or analytics actions in backend workflows, very complex workflows, custom code); Bubble's co-CEO said in August 2026 the Agent still needs to catch up conversationally with tools like Lovable; the AI prompt box takes 2,500 characters; native mobile app generation stays beta; included credits do not roll over and purchased packs expire six months after purchase; Bubble's Terms (September 2026) let it use AI Input and Output to train its AI tools, and Bubble does not publish an opt-out.
Bubble integrates in both directions. Outgoing, the API Connector (every plan, Free included) calls almost any JSON REST API with cURL import, streaming and OAuth2, JWT or key authentication, keeping keys encrypted on the server and routing calls through it. The plugin marketplace sells free, one-time and subscription plugins and templates (plugin subscriptions need Starter and up; Bubble prefers its own and certified plugins when the Agent installs one), and Bubble-made plugins cover Stripe (Checkout with SCA, subscriptions, marketplace payouts), Braintree, Airtable, Zapier, Slack, Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Segment, an SQL Database Connector, an App Connector and WorkOS for end-user SSO. Incoming, the Bubble app API (Starter and up) exposes a Data API (REST create, read, update and delete on chosen data types; user tokens apply privacy rules, admin tokens bypass them) and a Workflow API for webhooks such as Stripe's, with a Swagger file, at 15,000 requests a minute on Starter, 25,000 on Growth and 35,000 on Team. AI inside a Bubble app works with any provider that has an API (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and others) through plugins or the API Connector, with streaming, billed by the provider; the Bubble MCP (beta) lets outside AI agents build on the app; Figma designs come in through a plugin and Chrome extension. Native mobile apps reach the camera, photo library, location, push notifications, deep links and Sign in with Apple, with separate React Native mobile plugins. Held back by: an app cannot be synced to Git or GitHub (that sync exists only for plugin code); a native LLM action is only planned (October 2026); every server-side call spends workload units (an outbound API call 0.1 WU, a server-side plugin action 0.2 WU plus time, an SQL Connector call 0.1 WU plus 0.015 per row); non-dedicated apps share a server IP and therefore third-party rate limits, with static IP and direct database access on Enterprise.
Starting is approachable for a non-coder: describe the app and Bubble generates pages, data, workflows and privacy rules that stay editable in a drag-and-drop visual editor, or start from a template or the component library; the issue checker blocks a deploy to Live while it shows issues, the debugger and server logs show what each action did, web deploy is one click, and the Free plan builds and tests web and native mobile apps (with the browser Simulated device) with no time limit. Store publishing runs from the editor, and over-the-air updates reach mobile users without a new review for most changes. Held back by a learning curve Bubble itself describes: Bubble says a working app takes a couple of days and fluency a few weeks. The builder must design privacy rules (without them, all data sent to a device can be read) and has to learn workload units to control cost, where one visible action can trigger several billed operations, a recursive workflow without a stop condition can use up the allowance and optimization (privacy rules that withhold fields, scheduling on a list instead of recursion) is the builder's job; the Agent cannot build every workflow type, so complex logic falls back to manual editing; native mobile needs its own views rebuilt from the web pages and is labelled beta; plan gates spread across three tabs (Web, Mobile, Web & Mobile) and five plans, with app editors limited to 1 on Free and Starter, 2 on Growth and 5 on Team, and collaborators only from Growth.
Bubble prices per app (per project), not per user: one plan covers a project's web and mobile apps and the app's end users are not counted, which suits apps with many users, while each further project needs its own plan. The Free plan ($0, no card) builds and tests with 500 AI credits and 50K WU a month but cannot go live, connect a custom domain or remove Bubble branding, and holds at most 200 database things. Bubble's Starter plan (Web) is $32 per month billed annually or $39 per month billed monthly, per app, with 175K WU and 1,000 AI credits a month and 1 app editor; Bubble's Growth plan (Web) is $119 or $134 per month (annual or monthly billing) with 250K WU, 2 app editors and premium version control; Bubble's Team plan (Web) is $349 or $399 per month with 500K WU and 5 app editors. The Mobile tab (Starter $42 per month billed annually or $49 billed monthly) and the Web & Mobile tab (Starter $59 or $69, Growth $209 or $249, Team $549 or $649 per month, billed annually or monthly) cost more, and Apple ($99 a year) and Google ($25 one-time) charge their own developer fees. App generation uses no AI credits, extra credit packs cost $10 per 1,000 on Starter and up, a 14-day Starter trial (new apps only, $1 card pre-authorization) lets you try a live app, and student and nonprofit discounts are available on request. Held back by usage billing on top of the plan: past the monthly WU an app pays overages at $0.30 per 1K WU (on by default) or buys a workload tier (Tier 1 adds 200K WU for $26 per month with annual billing or $29 billed monthly), and with overages off it goes offline at its limit; the Save up to 20% annually label is reached by no plan (our arithmetic: about 11% on Growth, Web, to about 18% on Starter, Web); annual plans renew automatically and bind for the year; plans, converted trials and AI credit purchases are non-refundable; Bubble raised Starter (Web) in October 2026; and with no code export, leaving means a rebuild.
Support reaches every plan through the manual, Bubble Academy and the community forum; paid subscriptions get help through the Bubble Support Center, and Bubble says Free users also get answers (October 2026); bug reports start with an AI chatbot and go to a team that Bubble says is active 24/7; Team and above add a one-on-one demo and a consultation service with audits; Enterprise adds a dedicated account manager, Technical Success Management, 24/7 support and an uptime SLA on dedicated instances. Bubble publishes a status page, says its platform is SOC 2 Type II compliant with a GDPR DPA, runs on AWS with encryption in transit and at rest, and gives every app from Starter a security dashboard; overage emails at 75% and 100% of the WU allowance and custom alerts (Team) warn before costs run up. Held back by: no phone or live-chat support on self-serve plans and no uptime SLA below Enterprise; the October 2026 security incident: Bubble's preliminary root-cause analysis (November 2026) says an attacker obtained temporary internal credentials in late October 2026, reached other internal systems, got partial access to production systems and some user data, read private plugin data including credentials plugin developers had saved, and targeted individual apps through platform issues and app settings; Bubble says its review had not shown that app databases or app user data and files were read through the internal-system access, containment disrupted plugins, file uploads, PDFs, mobile deploys and AI app generation for several hours, and a final RCA will follow. Bubble also described periods of instability in autumn 2025 and in mid-2026. With overages turned off an app goes offline at its WU limit, and securing an app (privacy rules) stays the builder's job: Bubble's compliance does not transfer to the app.
The axis is the mean of each platform's displayed rating with at least 30 reviews, weighted by review count, read in November 2026: Capterra 4.6 from 334 reviews, G2 4.4 from 166 reviews and Trustpilot 3.0 from 172 reviews (DataForSEO aggregate), so (3.0 x 172 + 4.4 x 166 + 4.6 x 334) / 672 = 4.14, shown as 4.1, with no ad-hoc adjustment. It rests mostly on Capterra and G2, where builders rate Bubble well. On Trustpilot the negative reviews cluster on billing and charges, support, cancelling, trials and refunds; this is a map of complaints, not a trend, and the billing theme matches Bubble's published terms (no refunds, annual plans that auto-renew and bind for the year, a Starter trial that converts to paid unless cancelled, overages on by default). TrustRadius has under 30 reviews and is not used.
manual.bubble.io is broad and specific: plans and billing pages (per-project plans, the Starter trial, cancellation, refunds, overages and workload tiers), a workload section with a per-operation cost table (a page load 0.15 WU, a search 0.3 WU plus per-thing cost, each thing written 0.5 WU, an outbound API call 0.1 WU), how to read App metrics and cut workload, a page of hard limits, privacy rules and security, version control, native mobile building, previewing and store submission, the AI Agent, AI credits and the Bubble MCP, Enterprise administration, marketplace policies and plugin building; dated release notes and monthly founder AMAs on the blog explain changes as they ship. Bubble Academy offers free courses (Complete Quickstart, Mobile Quickstart, Security Fundamentals, Property Editor 101), alongside a free onboarding course, a How to Build series of walkthroughs, the community forum, third-party bootcamps and a paid Bubble Developer Certification. Held back by pages that lag the product: some manual pages still name legacy plans such as Professional as gates, one still describes native mobile as a private beta that is free with a paid web app, product pages still mark the Agent beta after Agent 2 left beta, the pricing matrix still lists BubbleGo while the manual calls it deprecated, and some blog posts still carry the Starter (Web) price from before October 2026.
Weighted across the axes above (weights reflect what actually drives the decision in this category). How we score →
Reviewers on Trustpilot most often complain about billing and charges, support, canceling and trials. Those themes match the written rules: no refunds, automatic annual renewal and a Starter trial that turns paid unless stopped. Scores on G2 and Capterra, where reviewers describe daily work, sit noticeably higher. Read the gap as a warning about billing and onboarding, not a judgment on the editor.
The buyers Bubble suits
Bubble earns its fee when an app has user roles, related data and scheduled server jobs that would otherwise need a backend developer. It also suits teams wanting one backend behind a web app and a native phone app, since a Web & Mobile project shares the database and the WU pool. Unlike Lovable, Bolt.new and Replit, which generate code, Bubble keeps the app visual for non-developers to maintain.
Think twice in three cases. Founders who expect engineers to inherit a codebase will find none to hand over. Buyers who need a fixed monthly bill will meet a meter. Anyone after a throwaway prototype may move faster elsewhere; Bubble itself says a code generator can be quicker for a proof of concept. Students and nonprofits can ask for a discount, though Bubble publishes no amount.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use my own domain on Bubble?+
Yes, from Bubble's Starter plan upward: one domain or subdomain per app, and the domain cannot contain the word bubble. HTTPS can take 24 to 36 hours after DNS is set.
Does Bubble train its AI on what I type?+
Bubble's Terms say it may use the input and output of Bubble AI tools to train and develop them, and it shares input with third-party AI services. Bubble does not publish an opt-out.
What support do paid Bubble plans get?+
Paid subscriptions get help through Bubble's Support Center, and every plan has the Academy, docs and Community forum. Team adds a one-on-one demo and a consultation service with audits; Enterprise adds a dedicated account manager and 24/7 support.
Can I switch Bubble plans after launch?+
Yes. Upgrades, downgrades and switches between monthly and annual billing are available any time in the App Plan tab, and moves between paid plans are instant and prorated with credit for unused days. An annual plan still binds you for its year: canceling early does not end the commitment, and Bubble refunds no subscription charges.
The bottom line
Bubble is a serious platform for people who want a working product with real data and logic, and it is the sixth AI app builder we cover. Pay for it when the app needs a database, server jobs and perhaps a native phone version under one plan, and when you can stay on Bubble long term. Before an annual term, watch WU for a month on monthly billing and read the incident report. Our score reflects strong capability weighed against lock-in, metered costs and billing rules that do not bend.
- [1] Bubble Pricing — Start Free, Scale as You Grow (2026-11) https://bubble.io/pricing
- [2] Bubble Manual: Application and data ownership (2026-11) https://manual.bubble.io/account-and-marketplace/application-and-data-ownership
- [3] Bubble Manual: Plans and billing (2026-11) https://manual.bubble.io/account-and-marketplace/account-and-billing/pricing-plans/plans-and-billing
- [4] Preliminary RCA: October 2026 Security Incident (2026-11) https://bubble.io/blog/october-2026-security-incident-rca/