How do freelancers handle Bubble hosting costs when building apps for clients?

Need help
1

Hi everyone,

I’m a freelance Bubble developer starting to take on small business clients (booking systems for salons, spas, and similar appointment-based businesses). I’m trying to decide how to handle the hosting side and would love to hear how others do it.

The options I’m weighing:

  1. The client creates their own Bubble account and pays for the plan directly. I build in their account or transfer the app to them.
  2. I host the app under my own account and charge the client a monthly fee covering the plan plus maintenance.
  3. A one-time build fee, with an optional monthly maintenance add-on, and the client owns the account by default.

A few specific questions:

  • Which approach do you use, and what do you wish you’d done differently?
  • How do you handle ownership and transfer of the app if a client leaves?
  • Does a small single-business booking app usually fit within the Starter plan’s workload units, or do you see overages?
  • Any billing or contract tips for keeping recurring fees from becoming a headache?
2

I’m based in Paraguay, and Bubble.io is quite expensive for this region. Small businesses, especially those with only a few users, think twice before accepting that kind of recurring expense.

To adapt, I currently use a single Bubble project to host multiple apps/organizations, depending on the workload units (WUs), and charge each organization a monthly fee. It’s not the cleanest approach, but I’ve had to adapt to the pricing model.

I’ve raised this issue in this forum before: Bubble should offer additional pricing options, not necessarily replacing the WU-based model, but allowing customers to pay per account, as many competing platforms already do.

More flexibility in pricing would make Bubble much more accessible to small businesses in markets like Latin America.

3

There is an Agency account you can pay for which grants you access to an Agency plan for building apps as well as a host of other benefits. You can learn about it here.

4

Thanks for the suggestion! However, the Agency plan doesn’t offer any cost savings for either my clients or my business.

5

What do you mean?

  1. you can be added on any bubble app without counting towards their developer seats
  2. you can use the agency plan to pretty much have a free growth plan while you build apps for your clients
  3. you get access to free plugins while you build and your client can pay
  4. you can transfer over the app at the end

All those are pretty helpful for any developer.