WU usage doesn't line up with Bubble's documentation

nealbo · 2024-12-08T19:38:07.013Z

I’m really struggling to understand the bubble pricing as there’s a discrepancy with what I see in the activity costs documentation and in my own actual costs in app metrics:

I have a very simple test set up:

Multiline text box and a button that triggers a workflow on click.
Workflow has one action only: create a new thing.

According to the docs this should cost 0.5 (each thing added or modified)+0.6 (each backend workflow activity) = 1.1 WU

manual.bubble.io

Activity types | Bubble Docs

This section covers how different activity types contribute to your app's total workload

But, for this test, which shows this workflow runs only one time, the workflow cost in App Metrics is actually 1.62 WU

What accounts for this extra 0.51 WU? Have I missed something?

While this is a small value difference, it’s a pretty large percentage difference. Not being able to predict costs for simple activities really makes me worry for more complex functionality that I’m currently building.

boston85719 · 2024-12-09T04:20:21.379Z

Not every charge for WUs is documented. Not every charge is properly labeled in WU metrics data in editor.

It’s a mess. It’s also a royal pain to get logical explanations from support as their first responses are usually made up in an attempt to swipe aside the notion something is wrong.

It’s a shame Bubble procrastinated for 18 months before switching to WUs and a shame they are taking no initiative to fix things.

nealbo · 2024-12-09T10:09:46.190Z

That was my fear…

At the end of the day costs are costs but the bear minimum I’d expect from them is transparency and the ability to determine that action x results in cost y based whatever factors they define.

Makes it very difficult to predict from both a build/optimisation perspective and from a financial planning.

A shame, but thanks for the answer. More testing needed from my side to get a cost range determined for my use cases. It should come from bubble but I guess they’ve offloaded that calculation for every individual to perform independently over and over instead…