Bubble Pricing 2026: Workload Units Explained and Real Monthly Costs

Bubble pricing in 2026 starts at $29 a month (billed annually) for a live web app on the Starter plan, rising to $119 for Growth and $349 for Team. Web plus mobile plans cost $59, $209 and $549. Every plan includes a monthly allowance of workload units (WU), and once you use them up you pay $0.30 per 1,000 extra units.

That last line is where most founders get surprised. The plan price is fixed. Your actual bill isn't.

If you're a non-technical founder comparing no-code tools, you want one number: what will this cost me each month? This guide answers that. You'll see every plan side by side, how workload units are calculated, three realistic cost scenarios, and the costs that don't show up on the pricing page.

Key Takeaways

• Bubble's web plans cost $29, $119 and $349 a month billed annually ($32, $134 and $399 billed monthly). Web plus mobile costs $59, $209 and $549.

• Workload units are the real price driver. Starter includes 175K WU, Growth 250K, Team 500K. Overages cost $0.30 per 1,000 WU.

• A database write costs 0.5 WU and a search costs 0.3 WU plus 0.015 per item returned, so list-heavy pages burn units fast.

• Starter plus a workload tier is often cheaper than upgrading to Growth if you only need more capacity, not more editors.

• The biggest long-term cost isn't on the pricing page: Bubble doesn't export your app as source code, so leaving means rebuilding.

The founders in this article's examples are illustrative composites based on common no-code scenarios. Cost figures are estimates calculated from Bubble's published workload rates.

Bubble Pricing Plans in 2026

Bubble sells plans per project, in three types: Web only, Mobile only, and Web + Mobile. Each type comes in four tiers. Here are the current prices from Bubble's pricing page:

Mobile-only plans sit between the two: $42, $169 and $449 a month billed annually.

What each Bubble plan actually gets you

• Free is for building only. You can't deploy a live app or connect a custom domain.

• Starter is the minimum to launch. You get a live app, a custom domain, recurring workflows, basic version control and 2 days of server logs.

• Growth adds a second editor, two-factor authentication, premium version control with 10 custom branches, and 14 days of logs.

• Team adds 5 editors, 25 branches and 20 days of logs.

• Enterprise adds dedicated support, a choice of hosting region and custom workload.

Here's the key point: moving from Starter to Growth adds only 75K workload units. You're mostly paying for collaboration and version control, not capacity. That matters later.

Bubble Workload Units Explained

A workload unit is Bubble's measure of the work its servers do for your app. Every time your app searches the database, saves a record, runs a backend workflow or calls an outside API, it spends WU. Actions that happen only in the user's browser, like showing or hiding an element, are free.

Bubble publishes the starting cost of each activity in its manual:

Bubble is clear that these are starting costs. Complex searches, large records and long-running plugins push the real number higher.

Why list-heavy pages get expensive

A single page load sounds cheap at 0.15 WU. But most app pages also run searches. A dashboard with four lists of 25 items each runs four searches (1.2 WU) and returns 100 items (1.5 WU). That one page view now costs about 2.85 WU before any data is saved.

Multiply that by every user, every visit, every day. That's how a quiet app on 175K units can drift into overages.

What happens when you run out of workload

You have three choices once your monthly allowance is gone:

1. Pay overages. The default rate is $0.30 per 1,000 WU, billed as you go.

2. Buy a workload tier. Tiers add a block of units each month at a lower effective rate. Third-party reports put the entry tier at about $29 for 200K WU, and Bubble's own example quotes Tier 3 at $299 a month.

3. Disable overages. This caps your bill, but per Bubble's FAQ, your app goes offline until the next billing period or until you pay.

Option three is the one to watch. A launch day spike can take a capped app down at the worst possible moment.

One piece of good news: all paid plans include a separate 100K WU for your development environment, so testing in the editor doesn't eat into your live allowance.

Want a predictable bill instead? StackMivo builds your app as real Laravel code you own, so hosting is a flat server cost instead of a meter. See how it works →

Real Bubble Costs: Three Monthly Examples

Plan prices only tell half the story. Here's what three typical apps would cost on Bubble's web plans, using the rates above. Your numbers will differ, so use Bubble's App Metrics dashboard to check actual usage.

Example 1: Internal tool for a 20-person team

Dana runs operations at a 20-person cleaning company. She built a job-scheduling tool in Bubble. Each staff member opens about 40 pages and saves about 30 updates per workday.

• Page views: 20 users × 40 × 22 days = 17,600 views × ~3 WU = 52,800 WU

• Saves: 20 × 30 × 22 = 13,200 workflows × ~1.1 WU = 14,520 WU

• Total: about 67K WU a month

That fits comfortably inside Starter's 175K. Monthly cost: $29 billed annually. For a small internal tool, Bubble pricing is genuinely good value.

Example 2: Marketplace MVP with 2,000 monthly users

Ravi launched a local tutoring marketplace in March. By June he had 2,000 monthly users generating about 60,000 page views, plus 8,000 bookings. Each booking ran a five-step workflow with three record writes and one Stripe call.

• Page views: 60,000 × ~3.5 WU = 210,000 WU

• Bookings: 8,000 × ~4.6 WU = 36,800 WU

• Total: about 247K WU a month

On Starter, that's roughly 72K WU over the limit. At $0.30 per 1,000, the overage adds about $22, for a total near $51 a month. A workload tier would cover it more cheaply.

Ravi's first instinct was to upgrade to Growth at $119. But he didn't need a second editor or branching yet. Staying on Starter and adding capacity saved him around $60 a month.

Example 3: SaaS app with 10,000 users and nightly jobs

Mei's subscription analytics app had 10,000 monthly users, 400,000 page views, and 100,000 user actions a month. A nightly backend job also updated 10,000 records.

• Page views: 400,000 × ~3.5 WU = 1,400,000 WU

• User actions: 100,000 × ~4 WU = 400,000 WU

• Nightly job: 10,000 records × 1.1 WU × 30 nights = 330,000 WU

• Total: about 2.1 million WU a month

Her team of four needed the Team plan ($349) for editor seats. That covers 500K WU, leaving about 1.6 million over. At the default overage rate, that's about $480 extra, or roughly $830 a month. Workload tiers would bring it down, but her bill now moves with every feature she ships.

Mei's real problem wasn't the number. It was not knowing next month's number. Every new background job meant re-checking the workload math before shipping.

Summary of estimated Bubble costs

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Hidden Bubble Costs Founders Miss

The pricing table leaves out several costs that show up later.

• Paid plugins. Many Bubble Marketplace plugins carry their own one-time or monthly fees, and server-side plugin actions also use WU.

• Extra editors. Starter allows one editor. Bringing on a co-founder or freelancer to build alongside you means upgrading to Growth.

• File storage. Extra storage costs $3 per 100 GB each month.

• Mobile. Adding a native mobile app moves you to Web + Mobile pricing, which roughly doubles the Starter price from $29 to $59.

• Specialist help. When the app gets complex, you need someone who knows Bubble specifically, and that pool is smaller than the pool of general web developers.

• The exit cost. Bubble doesn't export your app as standard source code. If you outgrow it, you rebuild from scratch. We cover this in detail in our guide to a Bubble alternative with real code.

That last cost is the one that never shows up on an invoice. It's also usually the largest.

How to Lower Your Bubble Bill

If you're staying on Bubble, these habits keep workload in check:

1. Check App Metrics weekly. It shows which pages and workflows burn the most units.

2. Paginate long lists. Returning 10 items instead of 100 cuts the per-item cost by 90%.

3. Move logic client-side where it doesn't need the database.

4. Batch backend jobs. Avoid scheduling one workflow per record when one run can handle many.

5. Set workload alerts at 50% and 80% of your allowance so overages never surprise you.

6. Buy a tier instead of upgrading when you need capacity but not features.

Bubble Pricing vs Owning Your Code

Bubble's model rents you both the builder and the hosting, with usage on a meter. The alternative is to build real code and host it yourself.

StackMivo takes that second path. You describe your app in plain English and it generates a standard Laravel application. You pay for build credits, starting at $5 a month for the Prototype plan, with 20 free credits at signup.

Then you deploy to Laravel Cloud, Forge or any server. Hosting is a separate bill you control, and it doesn't grow per database search.

The trade-off is real. Bubble's visual editor is easier for some founders, and managed hosting means one less thing to think about. Owning your code means a server to choose, though one-click deployment keeps that simple. Our comparison of no-code app builders vs real code walks through which path fits which kind of founder.

The simplest rule: if your app is small and internal, Bubble Starter is hard to beat. If you expect heavy usage, background jobs or a future engineering team, the code you own gets cheaper as you grow.

Building something you expect to scale? Start with 20 free StackMivo credits, no card required, and compare plans and pricing.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Bubble cost per month in 2026?

Bubble's web plans cost $29 (Starter), $119 (Growth) and $349 (Team) per month billed annually, or $32, $134 and $399 billed monthly. Web plus mobile plans cost $59, $209 and $549 billed annually. Enterprise is custom-priced.

What are Bubble workload units?

Workload units measure the server work your Bubble app performs, such as database searches, record writes, backend workflows and API calls. Each plan includes a monthly allowance, from 50K on Free to 500K on Team.

What happens if my Bubble app goes over its workload limit?

With overages enabled, you pay $0.30 per 1,000 extra workload units, or a lower rate if you have a workload tier. With overages disabled, your app goes offline until the next billing period.

Can I launch a live app on Bubble's free plan?

No. The Free plan is for development only. You need at least the Starter plan to deploy a live app with a custom domain.

Is Bubble worth it for a startup?

For prototypes and small internal tools, yes. Costs are low and the editor is fast. For apps with heavy traffic or background processing, workload-based pricing gets harder to predict, and the lack of code export makes switching expensive later.

Conclusion

Bubble pricing looks simple on the pricing page: $29, $119 or $349 a month for web apps. The real cost depends on workload units, and those depend on how your app is built and how many people use it.

Small internal tools usually stay on Starter for years. Growing marketplaces and SaaS apps can more than double their plan price in overages. Before you commit, estimate your workload using the rates above, check App Metrics during your build, and plan for what happens if you outgrow the platform.

If you'd rather own the code from day one, try StackMivo free with 20 credits → and build your first version as a real Laravel app.