How to host 50-100 live apps (agency account?)

andrewmccalister · 2024-10-05T14:25:25.038Z

I’m planning on building and hosting 50-100 apps for customers and would love to use Bubble for it but it doesn’t seem possible:

Agency account doesn’t let the agency take the app live.
Cost at $32/ mo for every live site isn’t economically feasible in this instance.

Any suggestions on a way to make this work?

I’m aiming to pay <$10 / mo for each live site.

**Some sites may (unknown yet) need the ability to interface with an API.

georgecollier · 2024-10-05T17:35:48.074Z

andrewmccalister:

I’m aiming to pay <$10 / mo for each live site.

Not possible

How can $32/mo not be feasible? Creating cloned apps must surely cost more than $50 of your time?

Sub apps must be on at least the starter plan which is $32/mo.

My point is that if they’re paying you less than $32/mo, then 100 apps for your clients will be nowhere near worth your time to manage.

andrewmccalister · 2024-10-05T18:03:08.834Z

Thanks for your clarification.

Would third party hosting be possible / cheaper?

georgecollier · 2024-10-05T18:15:19.134Z

Probably, but my point is that if you’re limited by the $32/mo starter plan, then your customers aren’t paying you enough to be worth any of your time.

boston85719 · 2024-10-06T09:24:35.099Z

@andrewmccalister get the dedicated plan. Can host as many apps on it as you like.

georgecollier · 2024-10-06T09:34:54.247Z

$3800/mo for 100 apps is $38/mo per app (that’s assuming that the most basic dedicated plan could even fit 100 apps)

boston85719 · 2024-10-06T09:45:20.304Z

How many apps are there per shared server? I imagine the needs of the apps will dictate how many can be on a single dedicated plan, but yes $3,800/100 apps is $38 per app

georgecollier · 2024-10-06T09:58:27.214Z

The whole plan is frankly daft (and I say that @andrewmccalister because I don’t want you to invest time and/or money in something that won’t work out on Bubble).

Back of napkin maths: If you’re capping your costs at $10/mo, that implies you might be charging your users around $50/mo. Gross profit $40/mo. On 100 apps, $48,000 gross profit. Take away all the overheads of running a business, advertising, and knock it down to $38k.

You’ll have no way of maintaining support and updates for 100 apps at that price point (because every time you make an update, you’re going to have to update 100 apps manually…)

The right option (if there is one) is to use subapps, which have a minimum monthly cost of $32/mo per sub app. This option allows you to update and maintain apps all from one editor.
The wrong option is to use individual apps on a dedicated plan, which will be more expensive (there is no way that Bubble will allow 100 apps on the lowest dedicated plan), and you can’t update them all together.

What kind of websites are you trying to host? Do they really need to be different sites, or just different domains with shared databases? If the latter, use coalias.com and have them all on one app.

boston85719 · 2024-10-06T11:16:49.214Z

There are a lot of assumptions made within that post.

More info about Bubble's Dedicated Plans

Ability to host multiple apps on one plan

georgecollier:

there is no way that Bubble will allow 100 apps on the lowest dedicated plan

Bubble doesn’t state a limit, so it should not be assumed they would limit the number of apps that can be hosted on a dedicated server.

georgecollier:

The right option (if there is one) is to use subapps,

andrewmccalister:

**Some sites may (unknown yet) need the ability to interface with an API.

Since the OP mentions some sites may need to interface with an API as that is unknown, you can not assume all apps are the same, so a subapp approach may not be the right choice.

georgecollier:

On 100 apps, $48,000 gross profit. Take away all the overheads of running a business, advertising, and knock it down to $38k.

This assumes $38K a year might not be good enough profit to make something worthwhile and that the overall concept does not involve it being more of a passive income.

georgecollier:

You’ll have no way of maintaining support and updates for 100 apps at that price point (because every time you make an update, you’re going to have to update 100 apps manually…)

Again assumes all apps are basically same.

georgecollier:

Do they really need to be different sites, or just different domains with shared databases? If the latter, use coalias.com and have them all on one app.

This assumes the single app that powers 100 apps can scale on a non dedicated plan, which may or may not be true.

Dedicated plans can be beefed up with more resources if needed. The only pricing info I have is from Bubble pdf on dedicated plans that I’m 2018 start at around $1,100 a month which likely has increased.

Either way, my response wasn’t meant to provide commentary or provide business advice, I simply chimed in to answer the question in the title for how to host 50-100 apps on Bubble not using an Agency account. Hopefully it helps answer the question and gives OP options to explore on whether or not to proceed with his concept.

georgecollier · 2024-10-06T11:33:20.038Z

boston85719:

The only pricing info I have is from Bubble pdf on dedicated plans that I’m 2018 start at around $1,100 a month which likely has increased.

$3,800/mo now

And the dedicated servers aren’t powerful at all. $3,800/mo doesn’t get you a lot - Bubble sells the support and reliability for mission critical applications, not the ‘power’ of a dedicated server or anything.

Unless the traffic to each app is near zero, it’s not gonna happen - and that doesn’t even take into account the fact that OP can’t actively work on, maintain, and provide support for 100 distinct apps all by himself.

Bubble is great for most things, and not great for some things - this is one of those things that Bubble is not good for, as the pricing is clearly a non-starter for OP.

I’ve explored this kind of question for one of my own clients, whose B2B customers want their own server.

Bubble can’t support each sub app having its own dedicated instance so can’t go that route, and I’m not creating duplicate apps and maintaining all of them with each on their own instance because that’s a recipe for disaster. And this would only be like 5 apps… not 100!

animisha45 · 2024-10-06T11:55:40.825Z

boston85719:

limit the number of apps that can be hosted on a dedicated server.

There is a limit by bubble. For the most basic dedicated plan, I think it was 10. One can talk to the support if they are planning on hosting more. (This is last year info so it might have updated since then.)

Edit: There are no limits. Explained my confusion here👇

How to host 50-100 live apps (agency account?) Questions

Hi @boston85719 , I reached out to the person with whom I attended the call for dedicated server. A bit of context, They were aiming at multiple apps with different domains for multiple clients on the same dedicated server. These were CRMs, so expect large database. The Bubble representative didn’t say that there was a limit, but they would have to configure everything accordingly for the server. On the most basic configuration, 10-20 will run smoothly without any delays or issues. For more a…

andrewmccalister · 2024-10-06T19:31:06.972Z

Thanks for your input on this - coalias.com may be the solution I’m looking for (I’d never heard of it and it almost seems to good to be true…).

Q: user types in www.clientA.com, Coalias detects this and realizes it needs to load a specific app in Bubble. Loads the app and I use the data associated the clientA URL to load to correct data from the DB? @gaimed

A little background. Initially I’m going to allow clients to pick from 3 templates for their websites (over time this may increase to 20+ templates). These will be very simple static sites (3-5 pages each) - with little to no updates over time and low traffic on each site (hence the low price). Since they are templated and can share a database having it on the same app makes a lot of sense.

Q: Do you think each template would need to be it’s own app?

gaimed · 2024-10-08T07:28:05.773Z

Hi there,

You can make each template a page. But you can also create a static version of that template using AI and uploading it using the CoAlias plugin to the domain. That way pages will load instantly and save you lost of WU.

If you need help, just book a time on coaching | Ab Advany | Cal.com

boston85719 · 2024-10-08T16:39:53.501Z

@animisha45 do you recall who from Bubble told you it was a limit of 10?
@georgecollier have you ever reached out to Bubble to request details about the dedicated plan, and specifically if there is a limit to the number of apps that could be hosted on a single dedicated plan?

I had to reach out again as I need to stay up to date with changes that take place, the last time I reached out was sometime in early 2020 as I had a concept similar to the OP. At that time the pricing was similar to the 2018 pricing of $1,100/month and I was told then there is not limit to the number of apps we could host on a single dedicated plan.

I reached out again the other day to make sure on the forum the correct information is available.

I asked Bubble sales the below question and got the below response:

Hi Kyle

Is there any limit to the number of apps I can host on a single dedicated plan?

Cheers

Matt

Hey Matt,

There are no limits to the number of apps you can host on your dedicated server!

Let me know if it makes sense to connect so we can talk through this plan together.

Best,
Kyle

In the past there has been times I’ve gotten incorrect information from one person on the Bubble team only to learn it was incorrect when following up with another team member. I’d be curious to know if either of you had spoken to support or to sales directly as it might be that support has inaccurate information.

@andrewmccalister coalias seems like a solid product. I’ve had some clients that used it and they seemed pretty satisfied. I believe you could likely do alright by using it, especially as there may be ways to save on WUs with it, so as to not need to step up to the dedicated plan in order to have 50-100 apps hosted. I’m personally looking forward to the WU reducer product, which I believe I’ve seen it mentioned that @gaimed is going to be potentially packaging the two together

georgecollier · 2024-10-08T16:42:42.582Z

boston85719:

I was told then there is not limit to the number of apps we could host on a single dedicated plan.

Hard limits no, but performance limits sure. All I intended to say was that at $3,800/mo, it seems really unlikely you could run 100 apps on it as they’re really not that powerful - they’re pricey for support/reliability, not power. Of course, you don’t know if you don’t ask!

animisha45 · 2024-10-09T05:28:00.434Z

Hi @boston85719 ,

I reached out to the person with whom I attended the call for dedicated server.

A bit of context, They were aiming at multiple apps with different domains for multiple clients on the same dedicated server. These were CRMs, so expect large database.

The Bubble representative didn’t say that there was a limit, but they would have to configure everything accordingly for the server. On the most basic configuration, 10-20 will run smoothly without any delays or issues. For more apps the configuration would have to be updated.

My recollection was a bit wrong since it was long ago. Sorry if there was any misinformation

gaimed · 2024-10-09T14:27:41.887Z

I think they charge like $80/mo per subapp + additional for extra performance that you need. So @georgecollier’s 10 limit makes sense for the default resources a 3800/mo box comes with.

boston85719 · 2024-10-10T04:17:34.743Z

The Team plan starting at $349/month allows for sub apps, if each sub app then charged at only $80/month provides for the same resources for each sub app as what the Team plan gets, let’s say WUs for example, which Team gets 500K/month, and each sub app at $80/month also gets it’s own 500K WUs per month, then yes, for sure the $3,800 dedicated server only handling around 10 apps would make sense; it just means bubble views the $2,731 difference as the value of the dedicated plans other resources available like custom branches and version backup/restore etc.

I wonder how many WUs come with the base dedicated server.

georgecollier · 2024-10-10T09:24:40.154Z

boston85719:

I wonder how many WUs come with the base dedicated server.

WU doesn’t exist on dedicated. It’s just raw CPU capacity.

boston85719 · 2024-10-10T15:37:17.550Z

georgecollier:

WU doesn’t exist on dedicated. It’s just raw CPU capacity.

I think there is a choice between WU or CPU

Screen Shot 2024-10-10 at 10.33.04 PM1000×380 51.2 KB

The wording in the popup of obtaining workload volume discounts or get pricing based on server size for me, indicates a choice between two different approaches to getting the dedicated plan to suit the needs of the account holder. Also, the use of ‘customizable’ for Monthly workload units would imply WUs can still be how a dedicated plan gets customized for the plan account holders needs.

BTW, any idea what the raw CPU capacity is? In the past I think it was 40 units of capacity, which I think was about 40X the number of units for the legacy starter plan, but I don’t have any reference to past pricing tiers and units of capacity on them.