Hi everyone,
Gaurav, founder of BDK, here.
Over the years, thousands of you have taken your Bubble apps to the App Store and Google Play with BDK Native: over 9,000 iOS and Android builds for Bubble customers alone, reaching millions of people on their phones. Thank you. BDK exists because of this community.
I’ve spent the last few months rebuilding BDK from the ground up, for how fast the tools people build with are changing. Before taking it to developer communities on other tools, I wanted to share it here first, with the Bubble community where BDK started.
Two minutes on what BDK is, and what changed:
Also on thebdk.com/film
What’s new, in seven lines
- Build and test everything on your phone for free. Push, in-app purchases, nearly every other feature and your loading screens, before you pay anything. Up to 20 previews per account, not just one.
- No longer limited to Bubble. Any web app works: Lovable, Base44, Replit, ChatGPT sites, Claude, Grok, Vercel, Next.js or anything else. One line to your AI sets it up. Move your web app anywhere, anytime, without lock-in or a new store submission.
- 70% cheaper. $99 one time for iOS + Android (was $349). Extra rebuilds are $19 flat per project (were $39). No subscription. 4 free rebuilds with every purchase, until Thanksgiving.
- The Bubble plugin is now (almost) free: $3, the lowest price Bubble allows for a paid plugin.
- Closer to native than anything else out there. Native push and modal transitions, with swipe-back and drag-to-dismiss. Build the native side while you build your web app, and see changes live in our preview app.
- Faster, frictionless builds and delivery, now mostly automated.
- Two free phone apps, and a new thebdk.com in ten languages. BDK Preview to see your app, BDK Native to manage your projects and purchases.
1. Build and test everything on your phone. Pay when you’re happy.
Paste your live app link (yourapp.bubbleapps.io or your own domain) on thebdk.com. A couple of minutes later it opens on your phone in BDK Preview, our new free app.
And it’s not just our demos. You build the native side of your own app in parallel: push notifications, in-app purchases and every other feature, tested on a real phone in BDK Preview while you keep working in the editor. No card, no payment.
When you open a preview, BDK Preview shows your own loading screen and goes straight to your app. No BDK logo or screens in between, so it feels like your real app. Great for testing with friends and early testers before you’ve paid anything. (On iPhone, BDK Preview opens only your own previews for now; friends and testers on Android can open the ones you share.) To leave a preview, just shake the phone.
Before, you had one preview. Now you can keep up to 20: one per app, per client, or per version you’re trying out. Agencies and Bubble developers can show clients their app, native features working, on a real phone, and win the work before paying anything.
You buy a build only when you’re happy with what you see.
2. Any web app, set up with one line to your AI
BDK now works with any web app: Bubble, Lovable, Base44, Replit, ChatGPT sites, Next.js, or something Claude Code or Cursor wrote. On Bubble you use the plugin; anywhere else, the same features come from our JavaScript SDK.
If you build with an AI tool, paste this one line into it and it sets up your BDK project for you:
Help me turn my web app into iPhone and Android apps with BDK Native. Fetch https://thebdk.com/agent/skill.md and follow it.
Your app isn’t tied to where your web app lives. This matters more after a week like this one. Your app in the stores opens your web app’s address. If you ever move part or all of your product somewhere else, you point the same app at the new address from your BDK dashboard. Same store listing, same reviews and installs, no new submission.
3. 70% cheaper, paid once
| Plan | Price |
|---|---|
| iOS + Android | $99 one time (was $349) |
| iOS only or Android only | $69 one time (was $199) |
| Extra rebuild | $19 per project (was $39) |
- Every purchase includes 4 rebuilds, free, valid for a year.
- No monthly or annual subscription.
- No hidden charges, and no upsells.
- What you change in the Bubble editor shows up in your apps as soon as you deploy. No rebuild, no store review.
This is introductory pricing, valid until Thanksgiving.
4. The BDK Native plugin is now $3
We’ve cut the Native Apps (BDK) plugin to $3 from $16 earlier, the lowest price Bubble allows for a paid plugin without making its code open. We’d make it free if we could. It’s maintained and keeps working as before.
5. As close to native as a web app gets
The details that make an app feel native have always been built into BDK’s core: permission prompts that appear by themselves the moment a feature is used, and native transitions between pages instead of browser page loads. This release goes further:
- Native push transitions. A new screen slides in, and you swipe back from the edge, just like the apps already on your phone.
- Native modals and sheets. A screen slides up, and you close it by pulling it down or tapping the close button. Sheets can stop at half or full height.
These are real native screens and sheets, each with its own web view, not pages reloading inside the same one. We haven’t seen any other wrapper offer them.
- Status bar. Solid, translucent with blur and your own tint, or transparent.
- Independent splash, loading and transition screens. Including animations, such as Lottie and SVG.
Plus 71 native features in total: push notifications, in-app purchases, Face ID, haptics, camera and photos, the share sheet, deep links, NFC, Health, app icon badges and more. Try most of them live at demo.thebdk.com.
And if you build with AI, you can ask for them in plain words. For example:
When a player reaches level 10, vibrate the phone, send a push notification to their friends, open the share sheet so they can post it to their Instagram story, and offer the next level as an in-app purchase.
6. Faster builds, faster delivery
Builds are now largely automated, from setup to delivery, so your apps reach you much sooner, with far fewer back-and-forths. We typically deliver builds within hours or overnight, instead of a couple of days.
When you request a build, an automated check tells you within 2–3 minutes if anything is missing, so it doesn’t sit on hold.
Everything we’ve learned over the years about getting apps approved on the App Store and Google Play is built into these checks and into how we prepare every build, so you hit fewer obstacles and get through review sooner.
We’re also building more tools to help you spot likely rejection reasons in your app before you even submit. And we have built internal tooling to add new features to BDK platform way faster.
7. Two free apps, and a new thebdk.com
- BDK Preview (see it): opens your app on your phone.
- BDK Native (manage it): your projects, previews and builds. Everything in it also works in a browser at thebdk.com.
Both are at thebdk.com/apps. On iPhone they install through TestFlight for now (two short steps, explained on that page).
thebdk.com itself is rebuilt too, and the site, your dashboard and the demos are now in ten languages: English, 日本語, Español, Português, Français, Deutsch, Italiano, Nederlands, 한국어 and Русский.
The full update
Everything on one page: open it in your browser · PDF
Also in: 日本語 · Español · Português · Français · Deutsch · Italiano · Nederlands · 한국어 · Русский
If you used BDK before, a lot has changed. Try the free preview and get your apps out there.
If you know developers building on other tools, feel free to share this with them. And if you’re moving your app onto Bubble or off it, give BDK a shot: your store app comes with you. We’ve never spent anything on advertising or marketing, so all our growth has come from happy customers telling others.
Questions? Ask here in the thread, or message us on the chat at thebdk.com.
Gaurav
Founder, thebdk.com