Your app runs on Bubble, customers are using it, and the list of things to build is longer than the hours you have. You need a Bubble developer, or maybe something else.
6 Rules for Hiring a Bubble Developer
- Start with a certified developer, then judge the apps they have shipped.
- Pay for a small real task before you agree to anything bigger.
- Keep the app in your account and add developers as collaborators.
- Ask about privacy rules and workload in the interview. Weak answers there cost you later.
- Budget for Bubble itself, because your plan cost grows as the app does.
- Know when to stop hiring for Bubble. Some problems are cheaper to solve in code.
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Bubble is one of the most popular ways to build a web app without writing code, and a large market of freelancers and agencies has grown around it. That makes Bubble developers easy to find and hard to choose between.
This guide is for founders and owners of small software companies, especially B2B SaaS, who built on Bubble and need help. It covers where to look, what to pay, how to judge candidates when you aren't technical, and how to tell when the right hire is not a Bubble developer at all.
What a Bubble Developer Does
A Bubble developer builds and changes your app inside Bubble's visual editor. In practice that means designing pages, building workflows, structuring the database, setting privacy rules that control who can see which data, and connecting outside services through Bubble's API tools.
Good ones also manage the two things that quietly decide whether a Bubble app works at scale: privacy rules, which protect your users' data, and workload, the usage measure Bubble bills on. A developer who builds features fast but ignores either will leave you with an app that leaks data or costs more every month.
Where to Hire a Bubble Developer
1. Bubble certified developers
Bubble runs an official developer certification. The exam is proctored, needs 80 percent to pass, and from April 1, 2025 a certification is valid for two years. Certified developers have a certificate page on bubble.io you can check, which makes this the quickest way to rule out people who only know the basics.
2. Freelance marketplaces
Upwork, Fiverr and Arc all list Bubble developers. You get the widest choice and the lowest rates, and you do the vetting yourself. Best for defined pieces of work with a clear end.
3. Bubble agencies
Clutch lists agencies that specialise in Bubble. You get a team, a project manager and a fixed scope, at a higher price. Best for a large first version or a big rebuild of an existing app.
4. Referrals from other Bubble founders
Often the best source. Ask founders who build on Bubble who they use, and what went wrong with the people they stopped using.
What a Bubble Developer Costs
Rates vary more with location and experience than with the platform.
The hourly figures come from the marketplaces themselves, and Clutch's range covers whole projects, so use them to sanity-check quotes rather than to set a budget.
Then add Bubble. Its plans include a monthly allowance of workload units, and heavier usage costs more, so an app with more users or inefficient workflows grows its Bubble bill as well as its developer bill. Ask any developer how they keep workload down, and check the current plan prices on Bubble's own site.
How to Vet a Bubble Developer
You do not need to understand the editor to judge a candidate. You need the right questions and a small paid test.
Questions to ask a Bubble developer
- Can I see your Bubble certificate, and two live apps you built that I can sign up to and use?
- How do you set up privacy rules so one user can never see another user's data?
- How do you keep workload down as the app grows? What made an app you worked on expensive to run?
- How do you test changes before deploying them to the live app?
- Which outside services have you connected to Bubble, and how did you handle their API keys?
- What would you not build in Bubble, and why?
Good answers are specific and admit limits. The last question matters most: a developer who says Bubble can do anything either has not pushed it hard or will not tell you when you need something else.
Then pay for a small, real task from your backlog, a few hours of work at their normal rate. You learn how they communicate, how they handle an unclear request and whether the result works.
When to Move Parts of Your App to Code
Bubble is a good place to build and validate a product. It is not always the right place to scale one, and the decision has a catch: Bubble's manual says you own your app's design and your users' data, but Bubble keeps ownership of the underlying code, and there is no way to export your application as code. Moving to code means rebuilding, not converting.
So the question is not whether to leave Bubble but which parts to move, and when.
New pages, workflows and fixes. The cheapest and fastest option while Bubble is doing the job.
Keep the Bubble app your customers know and move the hard part, such as heavy data processing, a public API or a complex integration, into a small coded service that Bubble calls. It solves the immediate problem without a full rebuild.
Rebuild one area at a time behind the same screens, starting with the part that hurts most, and keep the Bubble app running until the coded version does everything customers use.
The signs that you have reached the second or third card are usually practical rather than technical: your Bubble bill climbs faster than your revenue, pages slow down as data grows, a customer needs an integration or an API that Bubble handles badly, or an enterprise buyer or investor asks where the code lives and who owns it.
Outgrowing Bubble, one piece at a time?
A senior developer on subscription: $849 a month, as many requests as you like, each shipped within 2 to 3 business days, and your money back if the first 7 days don’t prove it.
Bubble and StackTie
We run a product development subscription, so read this with that in mind.
We do not build inside Bubble's editor. For pages and workflows in Bubble, hire a Bubble developer using the advice above. Where we fit is the second and third cards: building the coded services your Bubble app calls, or moving your app off Bubble in stages. You send requests, a senior developer works through them one at a time, the code goes into your repository from the first commit, and the homepage has the price, the turnaround and the guarantee. We do not build native mobile apps.
If you are deciding how to staff the work more broadly, our guide to hiring a software developer covers when a full-time hire makes sense.
Hire for Bubble While Bubble Is Working
A good Bubble developer is the right hire as long as Bubble is doing the job. Check the certificate, use their live apps, pay for a small task, and keep the app in your own account. Watch your Bubble bill and your page speed as you grow, and when one part of the app outgrows the platform, move that part to code rather than everything at once.
