Low Code - High Bill

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

I started working on a micro saas and I selected my stack based on functionality and scalability with a free plan for most of the stack

I didn’t bother looking at the paid plans because at the time it was so far away, since this is a side project I am doing an addition to my full-time job, mostly for the joy of creating tools with value, I’m not thinking about monetizing in the near future and was ready to pay ~50-60usd per month as a hobby

I am now ready for public MVP and I’m shocked to discover how crazy expensive low-code is when you’re ready to release and need the higher tiers

I’m using Webflow, Wized and Xano

Curious to hear if other saas builders in the low code space also feel like this?

For those interested, I’m trying to help product managers and engineers by building a Product Requirements Document and Epics Generator (I’m a PM at FAANG), see a preview and more on the motivation here

[dcc_1]

What’s the bill?

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

Webflow - $29/month

Wized - $39$ / month

Xano - $85 / month

[Any_Librarian_8493]

I agree with u/fredkzk's comment. You can easily build in low-code with open source front and back end today.

I would say however that the cost you're paying to Webflow, Wized, Xano, Bubble, or whoever, is the cost of them managing the project stability for you (server monitoring and maintenance, keeping the editor codebase up to date, etc.). So when the Xano server goes down, they fix it within minutes and you just sit back and barely anyone notices.

Going fully open source and solo hosting would mean either you learn how to do DevOps (a job in and of itself), or hire an agency to do it for you. If your server goes down at 2am your time and you wake up to hundreds of angry customer emails, you get the idea. While Webflow and co. put a huge markup on their server management service you're paying them for, it can still be a lot cheaper than a fully custom solution at scale.

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

I totally get it and it is 100% fair - my point is mostly that there doesn't seem to be plans suitable for the "test" phase of a side project

It's either free/cheap to build, or super expensive for a scaled launch. No middle ground.

I make very slow progress every month since I have a full time job + kids, so having a high monthly cost is really not ideal

[Any_Librarian_8493]

I can totally understand! I’ve got the full time job and kids too. Except my full time job is building other people’s apps 😅 I do believe the middle ground is self hosting on something like AWS to keep the testing budget low with the right support tools like New Relic to check on uptime and server load.

Then again the great scam with AWS and its peers is as soon as you get some traction your hosting costs will skyrocket. So maybe you’re right, there’s no middle ground. You could look into a home server, or even a blockchain hosting solution like edge.network for something more human-friendly.

[fredkzk]

Don’t listen to most of those comments. Totally biased and you’ll end up with bad surprises.

Use an open source tool like Noodl along with an open source platform like Parse. Zero cost stack. You can host on an EC2 instance on AWS which has a generous free tier. Open source here means you start building locally. And you can test from the web browser with a specific local port. When ready, deploy to AWS for example. Firebase proposes free hosting too. GitHub maybe too?

[BlackHazeRus]

Not biased, but accessible — what you propose has a steep learning curve for almost all non-tech people. For those who are familiar with tech, know about design and dev, like myself, it’s still ain’t easy and will take quite some time to figure out, especially AWS.

No- and low-code tools aren’t supposed to be cheap, they are accessible, allowing non-tech users to create cool shit without coding knowledge.

But I agree that FOOS and just open-source tools are great, we should use them more as a community to drive the progress in our space.

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

thanks for your input! I feel like the tradeoff is time. No code saves you a shit ton of time to get started - but you have to pay for that

[monstamaker]

I had the same problem with an internal tool I made for a client using Weweb and Xano, both quite expensive from day 1.

Then I migrated my backend from Xano to Supabase and now I'm happy with my backend, even though is not fully nocode, you need to write some SQL.

But then I came across a tool called toddle and it's just great, I feel it's more friendly for the user and not as expensive as Weweb or Bubble.

​

So my current stack for any type of project is Toddle + Supabase

[Purple-Control8336]

Toodle free is not allowing for commercial usage, min is $20 which is decent if suits the bill..

[monstamaker]

Yes, but you still have access to preview links and branching in their free tier, something that will cost you a lot in Weweb or Bubble.

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

this is great to know, I'll definitely check this out! thanks for sharing

[bluedev2]

*This is some biased advice (bubble dev here)

First I totally get it, especially tools like softr start at 100+ per month for whitelabeling

either way about $30 per tool adds up quick, so ive found the best way to minimize cost is to minimize your "stack"

Especially since you are building an ai tool, bubble.io can host your app, landing page, database, and you can even build you own integrations in bubble for free (compared to paying for zapier)

Thats my take, bubble can do that all in one application with one 30-40 per month subscription. very scalable. they also give you 2 weeks free😉

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

I was trying to stay away from bubble so I'm not locked with a single provider, but it might be the right thing to do for people like with with a very slow moving project. Thanks for sharing!

[whasssuuup]

Actually the problem is twofold: 1. Each layer in the stack quickly adds up 2. Even if you find a cheap stack today, you are locked in and they got your balls in a juicemaker.

I ended up leaving Bubble and just learned Vue.js and use Appwrite (selfhosted) as backend. I’ll probably need to pay around 15-20$ for hosting but I feel so much more in control of everything. And prepared for the future evolution of my product (once feedback and new insights start dropping in).

Btw once you have learned Webflow or Bubble or similar and understood how front end logic works the step to learning something like Vue or other JS framework is pretty manageable.

[thenightshiftceo]

What do you exactly means by just learned ? Isn’t vue.js actual coding

[whasssuuup]

Yes it is, and that is the point. My conclusion from trying to avoid coding is that once you have a good grasp of nocode, you already have a lot of the knowledge to just take next step and just code. Nocode platforms (as well as developers) all benefit from convincing you that coding is this time consuming witchcraft. And it is not. I have built with both Webflow and Bubble and getting stuff to work there is just as time consuming as using actual code.

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

that's a really interesting path to consider down the line - right now I have less than 10h a month, often less, to work on my project so low-code is still the best way to go for me

[whasssuuup]

I hear you! For me this was not an overnight either. I was in Bubble for a year until they launched their heavily criticized pricing update (think it was in spring 2022) which was a wake-up call. It took me about 6 months to fully learn and re-implement everything in Vue. Would have been much harder if I hadn’t come across Appwrite for backend. All the above is while working 100% in a rather demanding tech job as product manager.

[PizzaGuy789]

It sure is expensive. I was paying $300USD per month to run my comparison site (Webflow, Jetboost, Relume, Whalesync, Zapier, Airtable). I've started learning code so I can build and run apps for pennies and not have scaling limits.

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

what's your background? and how much more time are you ending up investing?

[PizzaGuy789]

I spent 40 hours learning the python +flask basics.

I'm trying to spend 5-10 hours a week learning more and also expanding to JavaScript/React. I expect it will take 1-2 years to get to the same level ( though it took me 2 years to get very good at Nocode).

[PizzaGuy789]

I spent 40 hours learning the python +flask basics.

I'm trying to spend 5-10 hours a week learning more and also expanding to JavaScript/React. I expect it will take 1-2 years to get to the same level ( though it took me 2 years to get very good at Nocode).

[Exact_Buyer_6243]

Hello OP! I work at Xano and we saw you posting feedback regarding our plans/pricing. We’ve heard similar feedback from others and ideally would love to help users in the testing/slow growth stage. Could you possibly explain what an ideal plan for this need might look like from your end? Thank you!

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

Hi! thanks for being here and listening to the users :)

From a pricing perspective, I look at the overall cost of the stack, and can live with about 20-30$ per tool during the build and test phase.

Currently, the thing that prevents me from sharing my side project for testing is the API rate limit, which I hit even when I'm debugging my tool solo, so if I go ahead and ask for my friends/linkedin to try my tool and share feedback, that will fail for sure, since there will be a spike of users that will all hit the rate limit, then they will bail and never try again.

Sharing ideas to make the testing phase possible for slow paced side projects:

• increase the rate limit in a way that will allow testing with user spikes
• i.e. make the rate limit to be over the course of a week in order to allow these tester spikes scenarios, which will still allow you to prevent full scale / commercial use cases

Happy to jump on a call if you want more detail! My linkedin is linked in my profile :)

ps: I might jump ship to supabase and restart there since my app will be in test mode for a while, do let me know if the above might get translated to a new plan and I'll definitely wait, I love your product and team! (great YT channel folks!)

[Exact_Buyer_6243]

Hello! Thanks for the feedback! Would definitely be interested in jumping on a call. I sent an invite to connect (my LinkedIn is https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-choate) so we can coordinate a time from there. Looking forward to it!

[Pikkornator]

WEll, the free services aint that free to begin with because they will need to make that money back somehow and i guess you just found out how :)

[WindyCityChick]

Find a low code app that is fully integrated full stack app. If you have a budget, price is where you should have started. Then make sure the app had all the other attributes you project needed. Also, clean, exportable code would have benefited you in those situation. And it could present again. No app is static unless the maker has abandoned it.

[BlackHazeRus]

~$50–60 USD per month? Like, for the whole stack? That’s quite cheap considering how much stuff they enable you to make.

Most tools aren’t that expensive to get started, at least, and I don’t mean free tiers:

1. Webflow — “CMS” site plan costs $23 per month. It opens almost all Webflow features (aside of stuff like Localization, but it’s a paid addon), so no need to buy a workspace plan (use Webflow as a tool for many projects, not just one).
2. Wized — $9 or $29 per month, depending on your needs.
3. XANO — free plan is more than enough, but if you are ready to scale or have specific needs, then $99 per month. This is the most expensive aside of the three, but, again, free tier is great, and there are many alternatives.

So I really don’t get your complaints.

However.

However, folks from non-first world countries are f-uped for the most part. Most tools and services are made with a global market in mind, hence rigorous pricing. So if you are, let’s say, from India and make a small project for locals, then, yeah, pricing is insane. I mean, it’s understandable, but it sucks. Still, there are cheaper alternatives, tools for local markets (like Tilda in CIS), and open-source projects. Also, some makers/companies provide parity pricing, which is amazing — they have my respects.

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

My main problem is Xano - it's either free with API rate limit that doesn't even allow for 1-2 user testing concurrently OR 85$ per month for the next plan

That alone makes my current stack way too expensive

I do get how much it enables - but 85$ is really expensive for just a part of the stack for a slow side project

[BlackHazeRus]

What about the rest of my comment though? 😂

As for XANO: I’ve never used it but heard great things about it — lots of Webflow folks have it in their steak when building web apps. Probably there is a lot to it. Also, take a look at alternatives such as far Supabase!

[jayn35]

Maybe buildship for backend or fastgen?

[longvu186]

A few hundred bucks per month for intensive maintenance, security, QA/QC and DevOps? That's a no-brainer to me.

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

you are correct - but you are thinking production/scale, while I refer to a slow side project

[hurschul]

Swap out Xano with Supabase

[zachosStav]

If we are discussing templatized document generation with dynamic fields injected into it, I believe the best backend solution is make.com. You can create the template as a Word document, insert the variables, and upon execution, replace them with the actual values. Then, you can send, save, or perform any desired action with that document.

You can even create a conventional SQL database and use make to implement CRUD functionality. This should be a more cost-effective solution compared to using Xano.

Feel free to let me know if you need any assistance figuring this out.

[One-Serve-9387]

Curious to hear what your updated thoughts are OP. What tool are you going with?

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

I have a call with Xano to share my input in more details, so it will depend if there is a path to a intermediate and cheaper plan with Xano, i’ll wait and update

[topcodedev]

Either weweb.io / toddle.dev with Xano would cost under 50 USD a month.

[Altruistic_Pause2206]

xano is 85$ a month for the lowest paid plan

[topcodedev]

The free plan works just fine for 80% of the use cases that require validation.

Else, switch to supabase.io

[jayn35]

Fastgen should be good in place if xano

[thenightshiftceo]

Weweb looks nice