As many users are building apps for their own clients, either as part of an agency or as individuals, we introduced a new type of subscription that helps with building apps and transferring them smoothly. For a monthly fee per designer, you can now pick a special free agency plan for the apps you design and use all Bubble paid features when you build the application so that you do not need your client to subscribe to a paid plan until the app is ready to be delivered. The special agency plan also removes the branding on the development version, so that you can demo the app as it would be under a paid plan. All apps on the agency plan are password protected.
You can read more about this plan here, and you can create an agency subscription in your account page.
Note that this plan should only be used for apps designed for customers, using this for your own apps is against the spirit and the terms of the agency subscription.
Yes, it can be migrated, but it doesn’t offer reserved server allocation, nor the ability to add capacity. Keep in mind this is only to build for clients, so if you need to run the app in production it should be on its own plan.
We are on an agency plan but have found that to properly develop an app for one of our customers, we also have to put their app on a professional plan prematurely, to get data into the system with bulk updates. This is still very early in the app development, but as we are building large reference data sets for them, we need to bring in millions of records.
So my quest is for an agency plan or developer plan that allows me to do everything I need to do to get the app ready to hand over to the customer.
I have had to dial up and down CPU access, but I also need to have other people collaborating on the app, and finding that the current recommended path is to upgrade again to team so I can run sub apps.
I am trying to understand why the agency plan has limitations of capability when the developer/agency for any app really needs the most flexibility to get the app built. If the concern is that an agency would take an app live before handing it off to the customer, outside of normal development testing, it seems there should be a way to restrict that, while still offering full privileges and capabilities?
I have put this together to show how i think this works for Pro-level up, but I am not sure if this is correct, but i am also suggesting a different set of capabilities for Agency. I might be way off base on this, but trying to get a handle on it, and have the ability to get a small team focused on each app we develop, to collaborate and take advantage of the no-code paradigm at its bubble best!
Appreciate insights comments or clarifications or other perspectives.
I agree that a bit of clarity would be nicer. Thanks for pulling this together.
With regard to agencies being able to utilize sub apps. Aside from minor production setup (ie. linking a domain name, plugging in API keys), there isn’t a solid case for it. At that point, I would recommend that your client be on their own Professional (or greater) plan and to invite you as a collaborator (since sub apps are more of an ongoing maintenance function. Not a development function).
The agency plan, in my view, is a courtesy to the Bubble ecosystem. It enables agencies (whatever they may look like) to develop without having to pass that Bubble plan cost onto the client while in development. To prevent abuse, it needs to have some limitations.
While not a perfect comparison set, I think it’s worth considering how Squarespace, Webflow, etc., handle agency-type accounts.
