Building a web app from a blank screen can feel overwhelming. You have a great idea, but the path from concept to a functional product involves countless decisions about design, user flows, and database structure. This is where a Bubble io template can be a game changer, giving you a massive head start and letting you launch weeks or even months faster.
So, what exactly are these templates? Think of them as pre built applications. They provide the design, workflows, and database setup for common app types, and they are 100% editable. Instead of building a user login system from scratch, you start with one that already works. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about finding, using, and customizing the perfect Bubble io template for your project.
Getting Started: Finding and Purchasing Your Template
Before you can customize, you need to pick the right foundation. The Bubble marketplace is your starting point, offering a huge selection of options for almost any idea you can imagine.
Navigating the Bubble Template Directory
The official Bubble marketplace is home to hundreds of templates created by community developers. You can easily find what you need by using the built in search and filter options. The directory lets you sort templates by:
Category: Find a Bubble io template for specific industries like AI, E-commerce, Social, or Finance.
Cost: Filter between free and paid options.
Popularity: See what other builders are using to find proven, popular templates.
One free marketplace template, “Ez Marketplace”, has been downloaded over 28,000 times, showing just how common it is for founders to start with a pre built foundation.
Understanding Bubble’s Template Licensing
When you’re ready to make a bubble io template purchase, you’ll encounter two main licensing options. It’s important to choose the right one for your goals.
Standard (Individual) License: This license lets you use the template in unlimited apps for your own personal or internal business projects. You cannot use it to build apps for clients.
Developer License: This license is for agencies and freelancers. It allows you to use the template to build applications for third parties or clients, essentially letting you resell the final product.
The price reflects this difference in usage rights. For example, one popular template might cost $427 for a Standard license but $1,000 for a Developer license. The good news is if you start with a Standard license and later decide to transfer the app to a client, you can upgrade by simply paying the price difference.
Vetting the Template Contributor
Every template is made by a community contributor. Before you buy, it’s smart to check the contributor’s page. Here you can see details like when they joined Bubble and how many templates they’ve published. An experienced contributor who joined in 2016 and has 13 templates is likely a reliable choice. Their profile also provides a support email, which is a good sign you’ll get help if you run into any issues.
Your First Steps with a New Template
Once you’ve purchased your template, the real fun begins. Here’s how to get it running and start making it your own.
How to Access Your Purchased Template
This is a common point of confusion for new users. After you buy a Bubble io template, it won’t appear in the “My Templates” section of your dashboard. That area is for templates you build to sell.
Instead, to use your new template, you must create a New App. In the setup window, you’ll see an option to start from a template. Your purchased template will be available in that dropdown list. Selecting it will create a brand new app, pre loaded with all the template’s features and designs.
Starting Your Project: Initial Customization
With your new app loaded in the editor, the first thing you should do is review any documentation provided by the template creator. These notes often contain crucial setup steps, like where to add API keys or how to use the demo login credentials.
Next, start replacing the placeholder content. Swap out the default logos, text, and dummy data with your own branding. Since Bubble templates are fully editable, you can change anything, from design elements to database structures. Getting familiar with the template’s styles, option sets, and custom states will help you maintain a consistent design as you build out your unique features.
Choosing the Perfect Bubble Template for Your Idea
With so many options, how do you find the best Bubble IO template for your specific project? It’s all about matching the template’s features to your vision.
Blank Template vs. Pre Built: Which is Right for You?
You always have the option to start with a blank Bubble template. This gives you complete creative freedom but means you’ll be building every single element, workflow, and database field from the ground up. For most founders, especially those without deep Bubble experience, this can create unnecessary friction and delays.
A pre built template speeds up development significantly by providing a working foundation from day one. However, if a template only matches 50% of your vision and you find yourself fighting its structure, starting fresh might be more efficient. The choice depends on the uniqueness of your idea and your comfort level with the Bubble editor. If you’re unsure, read our guide to building your app using Bubble.
How to Identify the Best Bubble Template
While “best” is subjective, high quality templates share a few common traits. Look for templates with high star ratings and positive user reviews. For instance, a Freelancer Marketplace template with a 5 star rating across over 3,000 installs is a strong signal of quality.
The best templates also have an appealing design, a logical data structure, and strong security privacy rules already in place. Active maintenance is another key indicator; a template updated recently is more likely to use Bubble’s latest features and be free of bugs. While many great templates are affordable, some of the most comprehensive and complex ones can cost around $299.
Don’t Forget About SEO
If your app is public facing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial for attracting users. Many templates, especially those for blogs and marketplaces, are built with SEO in mind. A good bubble template seo setup will include clean URLs and pre configured page titles and meta descriptions. Bubble’s own documentation offers a great introduction to SEO, and it’s worth reviewing to ensure your template based app can be easily found on Google.
A Tour of Popular Bubble Template Categories
Whatever you’re building, there’s a good chance a template for it already exists. These pre built solutions cover a wide range of use cases, from simple landing pages to complex, multi sided marketplaces.
Business and Productivity Templates
Business & Dashboard Templates: For internal tools or SaaS products, a business template for a CRM or ERP system is a great starting point. These often come with pre built dashboards, charts, and tables for managing contacts, tasks, and leads.
Task Manager & Project Templates: If your app involves tracking tasks or projects, a task manager template can provide a Trello like Kanban board or a simple to do list structure. These templates handle the logic for creating, assigning, and completing tasks.
Booking and Appointment Templates: For any service that requires scheduling, a booking template is invaluable. They come with calendar interfaces, availability management, and automated confirmation workflows, saving you from building complex scheduling logic.
Messaging and Chat Templates: Add real time communication to your app with a messaging app template. These often replicate the look and feel of apps like Slack or WhatsApp, providing the UI and workflows for one on one or group chats.
Marketplace and E-commerce Templates
E-commerce Templates: Launch an online store quickly with a bubble ecommerce template. Clones of platforms like Shopify come with product catalogs, shopping carts, and payment integrations ready to go. The “Altron - E-commerce Like Shopify” template, for example, has over 1,900 installs.
Freelance & Rental Marketplace Templates: For platforms that connect buyers and sellers, a marketplace template is essential. You can find clones of Upwork for freelance services or an Airbnb style rental marketplace template with built in booking and availability calendars. One free “Freelance Platform” template has been installed over 5,600 times. For a real-world jobs marketplace we built, see the Taraki case study.
NFT Marketplace Templates: Even for niche markets like Web3, you can find a bubble io template. An NFT marketplace template provides the gallery layout and listing structure, so you can focus on integrating the blockchain components. A popular free NFT marketplace template has been used over 2,300 times.
Content and Media Templates
Blog Templates: A bubble blog template gives you a full content management system (CMS) out of the box. Look for options that are built for SEO, with dynamic pages for posts, categories, and author profiles.
Online Course Templates: For e-learning platforms, an online course template provides the structure for lessons, quizzes, and student progress tracking.
Photography and Sound Library Templates: If your project is visually driven, a photography template offers stunning gallery layouts. Similarly, a sound library template provides the framework for an audio streaming platform, complete with a media player and playlist functionality.
Niche and Industry Specific Templates
Agency, Portfolio, and Landing Page Templates: Whether you’re a creative professional building a portfolio, an agency showcasing its services, or a startup launching a new product, there’s a template for you. A bubble landing page template can help you capture leads and validate an idea in hours, not weeks.
Real Estate Templates: These templates are tailored for property listings, featuring map integrations, search filters, and image galleries.
Restaurant & Food Delivery Templates: From simple restaurant websites with menus and reservation forms to complex restaurant delivery platforms like UberEats, templates can handle the entire workflow. A free “Delivery & Takeout” template has seen over 1,600 installs.
Health & Meditation Templates: For the growing wellness industry, a bubble health template can provide habit trackers, workout schedulers, or a content library for a meditation app.
Multipurpose and App Demo Templates
Multipurpose Templates: Sometimes called starter kits, these provide a flexible, general purpose app shell with common pages like login, dashboard, and settings. They are a great choice when your idea doesn’t fit a specific category.
App Demo & Security Landing Page Templates: When you need to showcase a new app or a security product, an app demo template gives you a polished one page site to highlight features and capture interest. For security tech, you can adapt a tech landing page to emphasize trust signals and privacy.
Launching Your App and Getting Expert Help
Using a template dramatically speeds up the build process, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for careful testing. For how we handle scoping, design, development, and QA, see our process. Before you launch, run through every user flow (signup, login, payments, etc.) to ensure everything works as expected. After confirming all is well, Bubble’s one click deployment will take your app live.
While a Bubble io template provides an incredible boost, sometimes you need a more custom solution or help adapting a template to your unique business logic. If you’re a founder looking to build a high quality MVP quickly, partnering with a design led, no code agency can be the perfect next step. At Bricks Tech, we think like founders and specialize in turning ideas into market-ready MVPs in just 4-8 weeks.
Feeling stuck or want to move faster? Schedule a free consultation with our team to see how we can help you build and launch your vision.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly is a Bubble io template?
A Bubble io template is a pre built web application that you can use as a starting point for your own project. It includes pre made designs, workflows, and database structures that are 100% customizable, which can save you hundreds of hours of development time.
Are Bubble templates free?
The Bubble marketplace offers both free and paid templates. Free templates are great for learning or simple projects, while paid templates often provide more complex functionality, better design, and dedicated support from the creator. Prices for paid templates can range from a few dollars to several hundred.
How customizable is a Bubble template?
A Bubble template is 100% customizable. Once you create an app from a template, you have full access to the Bubble editor and can modify every single element, workflow, page, and database entry to fit your exact needs.
Can I sell an app I built with a Bubble template?
Yes, but you need the correct license. To build an app for a client or a third party, you must purchase the “Developer License” for the template. The “Standard License” is only for personal or internal business use.
Where do I find my purchased templates in Bubble?
Purchased templates do not appear in your main dashboard. To use one, you must click to create a “New App.” In the popup window, you will find a dropdown menu labeled “Template” where all of your purchased templates will be listed.
Is it better to use a template or build from scratch?
This depends on your project. For most common app types (marketplaces, social networks, CRMs), using a template is much faster. If your idea is highly unique and a template would require a complete overhaul, starting from a blank canvas might be more efficient. For most founders, a template is the best way to get an MVP to market quickly.