Online SaaS Building Journey: From Bubble to Scaling Challenges

With the continuous boom of SaaS and online applications, web app builders have made it easier for founders and especially non-tech individuals to bring their ideas to life.

Here is a short summary of a real SaaS founder building their app on Bubble.io:
Like many entrepreneurs, they initially searched for a technical co-founder to help bring their vision to life. After months of unsuccessful attempts, they decided to take matters into their own hands. Turning to Bubble.io, a no-code platform, they built their MVP and successfully launched the app last year.

Since then, the journey has been challenging. The app has experienced steady growth, now boasting around 1,500 users with 100 to 150 daily active users. Just six months ago, the user base was approximately 200, reflecting a growth trajectory. However, they recognize that scalability has its limits, and the increasing monthly fees are becoming unsustainable.

The Scaling Challenges
As the app has grown, some challenges of using a no-code platform have become very clear:

Technical Constraints: Bubble made it easy to build the MVP quickly, but no-code tools have their limits. Adding custom features and scaling the app has been challenging. With customization limitations, technically you cannot do whatever your imagination desires.
Increasing Costs: As the app’s usage increased, so did the costs on Bubble. With usage surpassing 500,000 workload units (WUs), the monthly bills are now around $300–$350. The costs are concerning as the app continues to grow since more features, plugins, and extensions will also add on the recurring monthly payment.

Tough Choices and Future Plans
This situation presents a difficult decision. This specific founder thought about it a lot and eventually decided to move towards development. Along the way, they received multiple offers for development from agencies and freelancers, with quotes ranging from $35,000 to $60,000.

Are There Other Options? What is the sweet spot?
I am a Software Engineer and I wanted to create a way for non-tech founders to easily onboard a platform where they can kick-start their platforms in an efficient way.

I wanted a way that prioritizes having no customization limits, owning the code, paying one time fees and having no scalability boundaries. So I created PagePalooza.com a platform where they can kick-start an informative website and connect features to it built by an engineer. I also built an in-app dashboard to monitor the progress and manage the tasks.

A lot of founders are on a budget and this helps them by allowing them to build the web-app task by task and at the same time collect feedback. My clients are owning their apps and paying a one-time fee, they might have paid more all year using Bubble and owned nothing. Might worth considering for some.

No-code and low-code platforms has made it easier than ever to launch a startup. But are we trading long-term scalability for short-term convenience? With PagePalooza.com you can benefit from both. Own your code, unlimited customizations and no scalability limitations.