Honest comparison
Joeckel Design vs Bubble
Bubble is genuinely powerful for building no-code apps. It's also a maze of workflows, conditionals, and visual programming that takes weeks to learn. If you wanted to learn to code, you would have learned to code.
Cost at a glance
Bubble
$32–$399/mo
- Starter$32/mo
- Growth$134/mo
- Team$399/mo
You operate, configure, and maintain it yourself. Add-ons sold separately.
Joeckel Design
$39–$119/mo
- Starter$49/mo
- Growth$99/mo
- Pro$149/mo
Free build/scope. Done-for-you. Cancel anytime.
What Bubble does well
We're not here to bash. Bubble is the right choice for some people. Here's where it earns its sticker price.
- ✓Genuinely capable of building real web apps without code
- ✓Database, workflows, integrations, auth — all built in
- ✓Big ecosystem of templates and plugins
- ✓Active community
Where Bubble falls short
- ✗Steep learning curve — Bubble has a no-code paradox: easier than code, harder than a website builder
- ✗Apps run on Bubble's infrastructure; you cannot host elsewhere
- ✗Performance is workable for low-traffic apps, struggles at scale
- ✗Pricing is workload-units-based and can spike unpredictably
- ✗Custom design is possible but takes Bubble-specific expertise
Hidden costs to watch
- ·Workload units — Bubble charges by app activity. Costs grow with traffic
- ·Plugins from the Bubble marketplace: $5-25/mo each
- ·Hiring Bubble developers ($75-150/hr) once you outgrow DIY
What Bubble customers actually complain about
"I spent two weeks learning Bubble before I could build my MVP"
"My Bubble app got expensive once I had real users"
"I want to leave Bubble but my app only runs on their infrastructure"
Live Client · Real Numbers
This is what we ship instead
Lighthouse mobile audit of wayneswalleyes.com, a real paying client (Wayne's Walleye World Guide Service — 2024 World Champion walleye guide). Run the audit yourself at pagespeed.web.dev. Typical Bubble output is in a different league.
Performance
Accessibility
Best Practices
SEO
0.7s
First Contentful Paint
0.7s
Largest Contentful Paint
0ms
Total Blocking Time
0
Cumulative Layout Shift
1.1s
Speed Index
Where Joeckel Design wins, head-to-head
- ★Done-for-you, not learn-Bubble-yourself
- ★Custom-coded means custom-priced — predictable, no workload-units surprise bills
- ★You own the code and can host anywhere
- ★When you need a feature, we build it — no working around Bubble's constraints
Ready to ditch the template?
We'll build you a free preview site — custom designed for your business, not generated from a template. If you love it, $49/mo and we maintain it forever.
No credit card. Cancel anytime.
Frequently asked questions
My MVP is on Bubble. Can you take it over?＋
Depends on your goals. If the MVP is validated and you want to scale, we usually rebuild on a real stack (Next.js, Postgres, Stripe, etc.) — faster, cheaper at scale, and you own everything. If you're still validating, sometimes Bubble is fine and we help you maintain it.
Why not just hire a Bubble developer?＋
You can. Bubble developers are typically $75-150/hr and you're still paying Bubble's monthly. Joeckel's $99-149/mo includes both the developer time AND the hosting, with no ceiling on changes.