Softr vs Bubble vs a Custom Client Portal: What a Service Business Pays in 2026

Short answer: for a service business that wants clients to log in, see their jobs and invoices and message the team, a no-code portal on Softr costs about $1,200 to $3,950 a year in subscription at the prices below, Bubble costs $708 to $6,588 a year, and a custom portal costs $15,000 to $50,000 once for a launched first version. Start on Softr when your data already lives in Airtable or Google Sheets and about 100 or fewer clients log in; move to custom when the portal runs a core process, needs rules the platform cannot express, or when you want the code and data in your own accounts. Vendor prices were read from each vendor's own page on 13 October 2026.

If you want a range for your own portal first, the AI development cost calculator gives one in about a minute.

Published prices, side by side

Softr's page lists its paid prices per month without stating the billing basis, and says Softr counts "app users, the people who log into the app you've built, not internal editors (which are unlimited)". Bubble shows only the annual-billed figure and says "Save up to 20% annually"; it also lets you "pay for overages as you go" once you pass your workload units, without printing a rate.

What a year costs for two typical portals

Take a service business with 4 staff and 40 clients who log in, and a second one with 10 staff and 120 clients.

Three facts fall out of this. First, the subscription is the small number: the person who designs the data model, the permissions and the workflows costs more than the plan, whichever tool you use. Second, Softr's cost moves in steps with client logins (50, then 100), while Bubble's moves with how much work your app does, so a busy portal can outgrow a Bubble plan with few users. Third, three years of Bubble Team ($19,764) sits inside the Starter band, so the choice between platform and custom is about control and fit as much as price.

What moves the number

1. How many clients log in. Softr prices by client users, so a portal for 40 clients and one for 400 are different plans.
2. How much the app does. On Bubble, searches, lists and workflows consume workload units, so a heavy dashboard costs more than a simple one.
3. Where the data lives. A portal over Airtable or Sheets is quick to start; moving millions of records or syncing both ways with accounting is integration work.
4. Rules and permissions. "Each client sees only their own jobs" is easy. "Each client sees their own jobs, their branch manager sees theirs, and finance sees invoices only" takes design.
5. Branding and domain. Softr's own pricing page says a paid plan is needed to add your own domain; check the same on any platform you shortlist.
6. Who maintains it. A platform build still needs an owner who understands it. If that person leaves, so does the knowledge.

Getting three quotes for the same portal

Write one page before you ask anyone: who logs in (staff and clients, with counts), the five screens they use, the systems the portal must read from or write to, and what must never be visible to the wrong person. Send the same page to a freelancer who builds on Softr or Bubble, an agency that builds custom, and one platform-neutral team. Compare three numbers: the build, the monthly cost after launch, and what you own if you leave. A quote that cannot state what you own on day one is not comparable to one that can.

What a custom portal includes at KUMO

KUMO builds client portals for 10 to 100 person service businesses that have no engineers of their own. A Starter Build ($15,000 to $50,000) is a launched first production version: client and staff logins, the screens your people use every day, a database you own, roles and permissions, an audit trail, one or two integrations, deployment into your own cloud account, and a handover another engineer can continue from. Two to three months is typical and the code is yours from day one. If you are moving off a no-code tool, no-code to custom explains how the move is staged so the business keeps running, and customer portal app development lists what a portal brief should cover.

KUMO's founders built Volopay's first production version as its founding engineers, and the FLIN case study walks through another production build from scoped brief to launch.

Costs after launch

On a platform the plan renews every month or year and rises when you cross a user or workload step. On a custom build you pay hosting, which for a small portal is typically modest, plus engineering time for changes, which KUMO publishes as $5,000 to $10,000 per month and less once the portal is stable. Plan for both before comparing a subscription with a build.

How to get a real number this week

Book a free 30-minute call with an engineer. Bring the one-page brief above and a list of the systems the portal must connect to, and you leave with a band for your portal and a view of whether a platform or a build suits it.

FAQ

How much does a client portal cost to build in 2026? On a platform, the subscription is $19 to $329 a month on Softr or $59 to $549 a month on Bubble at prices read 13 October 2026, plus the time of whoever builds it. A custom first production version from a senior team costs $15,000 to $50,000 and typically takes two to three months.

Is Softr good for a client portal? Softr counts client users separately from editors and lists client users in every paid plan. Its Business plan covers 100 client users, so it suits portals of that size with simple permissions. Check the client user limit of the plan before you commit.

Softr vs Bubble: which is cheaper? For a small portal Bubble Starter ($59 a month, billed annually) is cheaper than Softr Pro ($99 a month), but Bubble's cost depends on workload units and can rise with usage, while Softr's rises with client logins.

When should we build a custom portal instead? When the portal runs a core process, when clients need rules that the platform cannot express, when integrations multiply, or when you want the code and data in your own accounts.

How much does it cost to maintain a portal after launch? A platform plan renews at its listed price and rises when you pass a limit. A custom portal has hosting plus engineering time, published by KUMO as $5,000 to $10,000 per month, or less once stable.

Last verified 13 October 2026. Softr prices from softr.io/blog/softr-vs-airtable-pricing (page updated 7 August 2026), Bubble prices from bubble.io/pricing, both read on that date. Yearly and three-year totals are KUMO's arithmetic on those published prices. KUMO bands are KUMO's published prices.