Stay on Bubble
Keep paying the rent
- Time to a working v1
- —
- All-in cost
- —
- Monthly infra
- $150-1,200
- You own the code
- Hire from any pool
- Production observability
- Investor-diligence ready
- No workload-unit ceiling
Bubble vs custom code
Bubble vs custom code, without the sales spin.
Bubble is the right call for validating an idea fast. Custom code is the right call once performance, hiring, per-seat economics, compliance, or ownership start to matter. Here is the honest side-by-side — and the hybrid path that gets you most of the win for half the cost and risk.
Want the numbers on staying? Bubble pricing explained breaks down Workload Units; why Bubble feels broken documents the structural ceiling. Ready to move? See migration pricing.
Side by side
Four ways to get off Bubble. We’re only one of them.
Real numbers from real engagements. Pick whichever line resonates — we just want you to pick on facts, not vibes.
Traditional agency
6-figure SOW + waterfall
- Time to a working v1
- 16-24 weeks
- All-in cost
- $80-150k
- Monthly infra
- $60-300
- You own the code
- Hire from any pool
- Production observability
- Investor-diligence ready
- No workload-unit ceiling
DIY rebuild
Your weekends for 6 months
- Time to a working v1
- 12-26 weeks
- All-in cost
- $0 cash · 3+ mo
- Monthly infra
- $60-300
- You own the code
- Hire from any pool
- Production observability
- Investor-diligence ready
- No workload-unit ceiling
Our pick
Bubble to Code
Claude Code + one engineer
- Time to a working v1
- 3-10 weeks
- All-in cost
- $8-75k
- Monthly infra
- $60-300
- You own the code
- Hire from any pool
- Production observability
- Investor-diligence ready
- No workload-unit ceiling
Numbers from analyses we’ve actually shipped. Your specific app may land higher or lower — the free migration analysis gives you yours.
The honest take
If you can’t point to a specific limitation costing you money or blocking users today — you probably shouldn’t migrate yet.
Half the calls we take end with us telling the founder to stay on Bubble for now. We’d rather lose a deal than ship a $30k rebuild someone didn’t need.
Migrate now if…
- Your workload-unit overages are eating real money each month
- You're losing enterprise / Series A deals over Bubble specifically
- You can't ship a feature your customers are demanding
- Your senior Bubble dev just quit and you can't backfill
- Page-load complaints are now in your support inbox
Stay on Bubble if…
- Your app is still pre-product-market-fit and the spec changes weekly
- You don't have a clear paying-customer pain you can name
- You're under 50 workflows and your bill is still under $200/mo
- You can't commit a half-time engineer to own the result after handoff
- You're shopping for the lowest price — we won't be it
The middle path nobody talks about
Hybrid: customer-facing on code, admin tools stay on Bubble.
You don’t have to rebuild everything to fix the loud problems. Most customers run hybrid permanently — landing pages, signup flow, paying user experience and the spine workflows move to code; admin dashboards, internal CRM, low-traffic ops tools stay on Bubble. Half the cost, half the risk, all of the speed/SOC2/diligence wins where they actually matter.
Mentioned on the call by default — we score what makes sense to move and what doesn’t.
Not sure which side of the line you’re on?
Get an instant migration estimate, or book a call and we’ll score every workflow — keep on Bubble, move to code, or hybrid — live on your screen.