Update: Lost our biggest job of 2022 after yesterday's Bubble bomb

[plaidpixel]

tl;dr - have a huge meeting this afternoon and need to come up with some alternatives to Bubble FAST so I can present pricing

Updated below

I saw the new Bubble pricing today (thread here) ; have been working a few weeks on a site framework and proposal and had a meeting this afternoon.

I think I will lose the client if I don’t handle this well at this point – I cannot give them the same pricing we discussed a week ago because their site will likely launch just a month or two before the new pricing kicks in. And then the cost would skyrocket!

Apparently unlike Bubble, I realize most of my clients can’t or won’t accept a huge change to something they expect to use a long time

Anyone able to shoot me a few ideas for alternatives I can pitch to the client? I have a few ideas, but other than Xano I’ve been putting all my eggs in Bubble’s basket

[andrewgassen]

Appgyver + Xano is a popular combo. Appgyver is free, Xano’s pricing is published. Several tutorials available combining the two.

[plaidpixel]

Thank you – I had never realized Appgyver was free and this gives me something as an alternate proposal as I’m familiar with Xano! Really appreciate your response.

[plaidpixel]

I would be very grateful for any other advice – I’ve been searching and researching, as this project is a huge opportunity but won’t work with Bubble’s new pricing.

[siddharth]

Beware Appgyver sucks !!
Hearing about it firstly and going through its features is cool first but when you start using the composer pro you will ruin your time and energy (happened to me) a lot of issues I mean A LOT of issues are till now unsolved and unaddressed there support is very slow too…
The point is the point of ease and satisfaction bubble gives can’t be compared to any other no code

[plaidpixel]

Thank you so much for this perspective. First hand experience is a huge help when considering providers – but is so hard to find! Have you ever tried Wappler + a backend? I really need something similar to Bubble, even if I need to cobble it together myself. Bubble Support has not always been a huge “pro” in my experience, so I can apply my DIY approach to other services if this pricing continues… thanks again for your advice!

[ankur1]

Don’t worry about it. Bubble has take a step back on new pricing.

[dannyliu]

OH GOD WHY

[plaidpixel]

Anyone willing to throw out any other ideas?

[andrewgassen]

I guess I’d look at Xano’s integrations page. They list a handful of frontend builders they work with outside of Appgyver…maybe one of them will work for you?

[johnny]

You should be good for now?..

Response to previous thread

We’re currently re-evaluating the DB things limit based on the feedback we’ve been getting, and don’t plan to roll out this pricing without making changes. See my post here: Changes to how we charge for applications going forward - #414 by emmanuel

[plaidpixel]

I have read @emmanuel 's reply carefully - we have a printed copy of the thread here as we wait to find out if we even need to make this presentation.

I am so baffled by Bubble’s leadership in this instance. What lessons were learned and applied here vs pricing upsets in 2017 and 2019? I know of no other service in my decades of subscribing to things where a pricing change annoucement was so unpopular that the community forum needed a capacity boost. I mean… wow.

@emmanuel

We can’t promise never to change the platform, but we can promise to listen and be responsive.

Anyway, I find very little solace so far in the team’s response. It seems Bubble doesn’t understand that pricing is a foundational element of the platform.

Our sales team is currently attempting to explain why we can’t give them pricing for just one partner scenario. The client obviously finds this disturbing. Bubble’s short-sightedness had torpedoed my trust in building with them, and I need MUCH more of a strong and clear message that I won’t wake up in a year to another pricing “update”

Bubble can say it has nothing to do with the venture capital all day long, but it isn’t like your brain is going to say, “wow, that person is a VC so let me always keep a filter on for their insane ideas so I don’t let their random thought sink my ship”

When someone gives you millions of dollars, you listen to them and do what they suggest whether it’s your favorite idea or not. Bubble may not see it, but it seems obvious to me that the only way they had such huge blinders to the developer (their customer) response is that they have been drinking toooooo much of the KoolAid.

I have loved Bubble for most of my 4 years working with them. But if they continue down even a hint of this course, I can’t see how I could ever build an app or website without needing to explain to customers that they may need to “move” in 1-3 years if Bubble gets a new idea on how to price things.

Adjustments, increments – not changes. Too many people on this huge ship to turn it abruptly or it will sink. Before it sinks, I plan to be on another ship if need be. We are alllll watching, and the response so far is nothing close to enough!

[akalati]

Today, we all realize the price of being a totally captive customer with no exit options whatsoever. They fooled us with the “don’t worry, source code’s in escrow in case we go belly up” narrative, but they never assured us of these kinds of betrayals. Today will go down in the history books as “Slaughterhouse Bubble Wednesday”.

[plaidpixel]

I think they set a self-destruct Workflow to run yesterday but it had over 200 steps, so it didn’t finish self-destructing until after the Ides of March.

Sadly, the response so far has not shown that Bubble understands what they did today. Many of us have already forgiven multiple times in the past, and this is yet another huge foot-in-mouth that we as Bubble builders get to then share with our clients.

Update: Our client has not been forgiving, as they went through a similar price change with Bubble in the past and were uneasy if we were just bait and switching them.

They are unwilling to accept the risk of proceeding with Bubble and want us to eat the cost of redeveloping the app if we want to continue through the project phases (and keep getting paid).

I guess it is a great thing they are willing to work with us, but now I have to start charging NEW clients more because I have to find a way to eat this cost and stay afloat. What a absolute gift of a day this was!

[info.etuuta]

have your tried appgpyver? im planning to learn more about them, if bubble is making us use external database, might as well use a better frontend.

[plaidpixel]

Thank you for suggesting it! We are going to take two days off for the leads on the project to come up with a new plan. I think they’re leaning toward setting up hosting and using Wappler.

I don’t know what will come of it, and I sure hope Bubble is working on the best, most impressively apologetic mea culpa. A pause is … well, not close to enough to begin to make me forget this day.

Sadly, I don’t think I should hold my breath based on this comment from 2019

[jared.gibb]

Thunkable + Firebase

[sudsy]

Hey @jared.gibb, have any experience with Backendless UI builder? That Thunkable block-based logic editor looks almost identical.

[equibodyapp]

Just had a look at Wappler - it looks interesting! I might have a play around with it shortly.

I’m not familiar with hosting as you don’t need to with Bubble…looks a little daunting but I’m sure once you learn how it’s all pretty straightforward

[Sarah_Biberei]

If anyone wants to start learning how to code, I tried this and so far I’m very delighted.

Catalog Home | Codecademy

I don’t get any money from them, I just really liked what they do.