How to Build a Marketplace App Without Code

TL;DR: This guide teaches you how to build a two-sided marketplace MVP on Bubble, covering database setup with custom data types and option sets, a dynamic product search page with filtering, seller admin tools, and backend workflows for scheduling and sending automated emails to followers.

Building a marketplace app is one of the most requested, and most abandoned, app ideas out there. The concept is clear: Connect buyers and sellers, take a cut, grow as the network does. The hard part is getting from idea to something real users can actually use.

A two-sided marketplace, where buyers and sellers both participate independently, is more complex than a standard app because you're building for two different people at once. Get it right and you have a platform that gets more valuable as it grows. Get it wrong and you have a prototype that works for neither side.

This is a two-part guide, each with a video tutorial from the Bubble team you can follow along with. By the end, you'll understand how to build a two-sided marketplace MVP on Bubble with a product database, a search page with dynamic filtering, seller admin tools, and backend workflows for automated email campaigns.

What is a marketplace app?

A marketplace app connects independent buyers and sellers on a shared platform. The platform owner doesn't sell products directly. Instead, they build the infrastructure that makes transactions possible: search and discovery, user profiles, payment processing, and trust mechanisms like reviews and ratings. This is the key distinction from a standard e-commerce store, where one business sells its own products to buyers. Think of it as the difference between running a store and running a mall.

When a marketplace gets traction, it tends to compound. More sellers attract more buyers, which attracts more sellers. The platform becomes more valuable over time, and users on both sides have fewer reasons to leave.

One-sided vs. two-sided marketplaces

Marketplaces fall into two broad categories based on how users interact with the platform:

• One-sided marketplaces: The platform controls the supply and manages listings centrally. Buyers interact with the platform rather than individual sellers. Some grocery delivery apps work this way, sourcing from multiple stores but presenting a unified catalog.
• Two-sided marketplaces: Both buyers and sellers actively participate. Sellers create profiles, manage their own inventory, set prices, and communicate with customers. The platform provides tools but doesn't control the supply. Airbnb, Fiverr, and Upwork operate this way.

Two-sided marketplaces are more complex to build because you need separate interfaces and workflows for each user type.

Examples of marketplace apps

• Product marketplaces: Amazon Marketplace lets third-party sellers list products alongside Amazon's own inventory. eBay supports both auction-style and fixed-price listings for new and used items.
• Service marketplaces: Airbnb connects property owners with travelers seeking short-term rentals. Uber matches drivers with riders in real time. TaskRabbit connects people who need help with local service providers.
• Digital and freelance marketplaces: Fiverr and Upwork connect businesses with freelancers offering design, writing, development, and other digital services. These platforms handle everything from discovery to payment escrow.

What features does a marketplace app need?

A functional marketplace requires specific capabilities for both buyers and sellers:

• User authentication and profiles: Buyers and sellers need distinct account types with different permissions. A seller dashboard looks nothing like a buyer's browsing experience, and your database needs to reflect that separation.
• Search and filtering: Buyers must find specific products quickly. Dynamic search queries, category filters, price ranges, and sorting options reduce friction between landing on your platform and finding something worth buying.
• Listing management: Sellers need an interface to create products, upload images, set prices, and manage inventory. The easier this is, the more likely sellers are to keep their listings current.
• Secure payments: The platform must handle transactions safely, often splitting payments between the seller's payout and the platform's fee. Payment processing also involves refunds, disputes, and tax reporting — typically integrated through a provider like Stripe rather than built from scratch.
• Messaging and notifications: Buyers and sellers need communication channels. Automated emails keep users informed about order statuses, new followers, and promotional campaigns.

The steps below cover search, filtering, listing display, follow functionality, and automated email workflows. Payment processing isn't included, but you can add it later through a provider like Stripe Connect, either via Bubble's Stripe plugin or the API Connector.

Why build your marketplace app on Bubble?

Building a two-sided marketplace traditionally requires a development team to manage complex databases, user roles, real-time updates, and payment integrations. That means months of development time and significant budget before you can test whether your marketplace concept works.

Bubble changes this equation. You can build a production-ready marketplace without writing code. The visual editor handles your frontend design, the built-in database manages users and listings with automatic privacy rules, and backend workflows automate emails and scheduled tasks.

When you need to customize behavior, you can chat with the Bubble AI Agent (beta) for speed or inspect and edit the visual workflows directly for precision, so you can see exactly how your app works and stay in control.

Bubble is built to scale with you, from MVP validation to apps serving large user bases. Built-in hosting on AWS, a Cloudflare CDN, workload tools, and automatic scaling help you launch quickly, learn from real users, and keep iterating, while you still design your database, searches, and workflows with scale in mind.

Part 1: Building your marketplace search page

In the video below, Allen Yang walks through setting up a product search page for a bookseller's marketplace, covering database setup, page design, and building a list of products that can be searched and filtered. Follow the step-by-step instructions to build along in your own app.

1. Set up your database structure

Go to the data tab. Under the data types subtab, create two custom data types: “Shop” and “Product.” Then add the following custom fields:

Shop:

• Name (text)

Product:

• Name (text)
• Description (text)
• Price (number)
• SellerShop (Shop)

Next, define your product data type further using static options. From the option sets subtab, create three new option sets:

Book Genre:

• Fantasy
• Romance
• Thriller

Book Format:

• Print
• Digital
• Audiobook

Book Type:

• Novel
• Comic Book
• Short Stories

Add more options if you want. Just remember that this affects the filters and metadata you display later.

Now go back to your product data type and add your option sets to its structure. Hit Create a new field and select each option set you just created from the Field type dropdown. To keep it simple, match the Field name to the Field type.

You now have a comprehensive database structure.

2. Add sample data

Sample data is useful for testing and demoing, and it becomes critical when you add more complex features.

To create sample data, go to the app data subtab under the data tab and hit New entry. Now you can manually add as many sample shops and products as you want.

Note: Allen skips ahead at this part of the video, but he adds three shops with two products each. Pause here and add as much sample data as you’d like. Try to make your products varied to make it easier to test the search and filter functionality later.

3. Build the marketplace search page

Create a new page called “search” from the page dropdown. Double-click on the page to open the property editor and set the Container layout to Column.

Set up your page skeleton. Open the component library from the toolbar at the top of your editor and drag in a header and footer. Then add a blank row group to the left-hand side for your main content. Change its layout to Row, and uncheck Make this element fixed-width.

As you work, rename your elements to keep them organized. We’ll mention Allen’s naming structure as we go.

Now build the main search page content. Rename the row group “G Dashboard” (Group Dashboard). Then add a new group and name it “G Filters.” You can add a Background style from the dropdown so it stands out on the page.

Next to your G Filters group, add a repeating group and rename it “RG Products” (Repeating Group Products). Give it the following settings:

• Layout: Uncheck Make this element fixed-width so that it expands to its parent container and set Cell’s container layout to Column to give it a top-to-bottom layout.
• Appearance: Set Type of content to “Product” and Data source to “Do a search for Products.”

Now add a text element. Under Layout, uncheck the box for fixed-width and make the Min height 5px. From Appearance, hit Insert dynamic data to create the dynamic expression “Current cell’s Product’s Name.”

You’ll add several more text elements to this repeating group. You can copy and paste the first text element to keep the settings the same. Add one dynamic expression to each:

• “Current cell’s Product’s Description"
• “Current cell’s Product’s Price: formatted as Currency”
• “Current cell’s Product’s SellerShop’s Name”
• “Current cell’s Product’s Genre’s display”
• “Current cell’s Product’s Format’s display”
• “Current cell’s Product’s Type’s display”

Take time to clean up this design. Play with the font, spacing, and alignment to customize your app.

Lastly, select all the content in your repeating group cell, right-click, and group elements into a Row container. Then drop a new group to the right. Drag an icon into this group and select a heart. Then add a button and label it “Add to cart.” Adjust the spacing and alignment to match your preference. Allen centers the heart and button and applies gap spacing.

Customizing your design involves many small steps. Your design doesn’t have to match the tutorial exactly. Preview your work and adjust as needed. For instance, Allen previews the page and sees that the repeating group only shows four products. To fix this, uncheck the Set fixed number of rows option on the repeating group.

4. Set up filters

Add a way for users to filter their search by adding the following elements to the G Filters group:

• 1 input (to search)
• 1 slider (to select maximum price)
• 4 radio buttons (to select between different options)
• 1 button (to clear filters)

You can also add text elements to label your filters. Allen adds the first text element and adjusts its min and max width and height settings, then duplicates it for each label.

Now tackle each input one by one:

Search bar input: Nothing to program here. Users only need to type into it.

Slider input: Adjust the label to include dynamic data. After “Price filter,” insert the dynamic expression “MaxSliderInputA’s value:formatted as $.” Then set the Min and Max value to 0 and 100 and the Step to 5 to make the slider less granular. Lastly, set the Default value to your max price so your app shows all products and all prices by default.

Radio buttons: For the Genre radio button, select Dynamic Choices under Choices style. Select Book Genre for Type of choices. Make the Choices source “All Book Genre,” and the Option caption “Current option’s Display.” Do the same for the Book Format and Book Type radio buttons.

The Shop radio button is slightly different since it displays dynamic data (sellers) instead of option sets. Select Shop for Type of choices. Make the Choices source “Do a search for Shops,” and the Option caption “Current option’s Name.”

Button: For now, just label it “Clear Filters” and center it or adjust its width and height as needed. You’ll revisit it later.

Your filters are ready. Now connect everything together.

5. Connect filters to the repeating group

Connecting your repeating group and filters together is a quick process.

Modify the Data source for your RG Products repeating group. Earlier, you made it a straightforward database search. If you click the dynamic expression, you can add constraints to this search that reference each filter.

Start with Genre. Add a new constraint to the database search and set Genre = “RadioButtons A’s value.”

If you preview your app to test it, you may not see anything show up in the repeating group anymore. This is expected, and it has a simple fix. Go back to the Data source expression and check the Ignore empty constraints box. Now, if any of your inputs are empty, the database search won’t apply that filter.

Apply the same logic to the other radio buttons. Add a constraint that sets the field to be equal to that radio button element’s value.

Add “Price ≤ SliderInput A’s value” as a constraint. This ensures that only products with a price equal to or below the slider input’s value are shown.

Lastly, add another constraint for your search input: “Name contains keyword(s) Input A’s value.” Allen uses “contains keyword(s)” instead of “contains” to create a more flexible, word-based search. Unlike “contains,” which matches exact character sequences including case, “contains keyword(s)” breaks the query into words, ignores common stop words, and matches those keywords rather than simple partial strings.

Your search and filtering functionality is now set up.

6. Implement the “Clear Filters” button functionality

Users need a quick way to reset all of their selected filters if they want to start again from scratch.

Select the button you added to the bottom of the G Filters group and click Add workflow.

In the workflow tab, add one action to the new workflow. Under Element actions, select Reset data. Select the entire G Filters group.

If you preview your app, you should have a fully functioning search page. Customers can browse products, search for specific titles, and filter results.

7. Optional design enhancements

You’ve completed all of the functionality needed before jumping into part two. Before he signs off, Allen showcases a glow-up of his basic design.

We won’t cover step-by-step instructions on how to achieve this updated design, but here are a few customizations to consider:

• Add buffer and white space between the design and page edges
• Add an image next to each product listing
• Customize the font and styles in the repeating group
• Add more elements to the header to set the stage for potential development paths

Part 2: Adding backend workflows

The second part is taught by John Carter and Maria Posa, picking up where Allen left off to evolve the bookseller marketplace.

Allen’s tutorial focused on the features customers need to browse. Now, John and Maria tackle what a seller needs to engage with their customers: follow functionality so customers can “like” their favorite sellers, plus the ability for sellers to draft, delete, and schedule emails to their customer base using backend workflows.

Watch their video below, then follow the step-by-step instructions.

1. Update the database structure

To prepare for the additional features you’ll be adding, start by expanding your data structure in the data tab.

First, create a new data type called “Follow.” This lets users follow shops they like, and it records an interaction between two parties in your database. The “Follow” data type needs two custom fields. Name the first “Shop” and set the Field type to Shop. Name the second “User” and set the Field type to User.

You’ll also want to attach a record of this action to the user’s entry in the database, so in the “User” data type, add a new custom field: “Shops I’m Following” which will be type Shop. Make sure to check This field is a list (multiple entries).

Since sellers will manage a shop, you also need a way to associate a user with the shop they own. Add another field to the “User” data type called “Managed Shop” of type Shop. You’ll reference this later when building seller tools.

Now you can track when a customer follows or unfollows a shop. Later, you’ll build functionality that lets shops email their followers. To set this up, create a new custom data type called “Email” and add the following custom fields:

• “Body” (text)
• “Subject Line” (text)
• “Shop” (Shop)
• “User” (User)
• “Send Date” (date)

You’re ready to tackle the next part.

2. Build the “follow” functionality

Head back to the design tab. This should be your search page. Program the heart icon you added earlier so that users can follow shops.

First, add a popup named “Popup Follow Shop” to confirm the user wants to follow this shop. It should have some basic text explaining this to the user along with a button to confirm the follow. Feel free to design the popup however you wish, or reference how John designed his in the video.

Next, add a workflow to the heart icon. Select Show an element and select your popup from the dropdown. If you have any text in your popup that references the particular shop, add a second step to your workflow: Display data in Popup Follow Shop.

Now that customers can open the popup, add a workflow to the popup’s follow button. The first step should be to Create a new Follow. Define your two fields: User should equal the Current User. Shop should equal the shop selling the product of that cell.

You’ll also want to update the list of shops that the user is following. To do this, add a second step to the workflow: Make changes to Current User. Change the field Shops I’m Following to add the current product’s SellerShop (or Result of Step 1’s Shop). Now your users can follow shops.

But what about unfollowing? You can repurpose everything you just built for unfollowing as well.

On the workflow you just created, add a conditional at the bottom of the property editor next to Only when. You want this event to fire only when Current User’s Shops I’m Following doesn’t contain the current product’s SellerShop. In other words, a user can only follow the shop if it isn’t already in their follow list.

To create the inverse of this workflow event, copy and paste it. Then change the conditional expression from doesn’t contain to contains. This way, it will only fire if the user is already following the shop. Delete the copied actions and reconstruct the workflow as needed.

First, find the Delete a thing action and set it to Delete a Follow. You’ll need to perform a search for follows and constrain the search so that the user of that follow is Current User and the shop of that follow is the current shop. These two constraints should pinpoint the right follow from your database. Confirm you only want to pull one item from the search by adding :first item to the search.

You’ll also want a second step to Make changes to Current User and remove that shop from Shops I’m Following.

Now make sure the UI changes based on whether a user is following the shop. The button on your popup will say Follow no matter what. But you can copy the conditional you added to the workflow event and use it again. Move to the design tab and find the button on that popup. Paste in that conditional in the When field. Then change the text to say “Unfollow.”

You can use the same conditional logic for the word “Follow” or the heart icon in your popup.

This completes the basic functionality of your app needed on the customer’s side. Now tackle the seller’s experience.

3. Set up the shop admin page

Create a new page called “shop-admin.” Feel free to pull in any headers or footers if you want. Otherwise, you’ll be building the main content of this page from scratch.

The tutorial fast-forwards through John’s overall design process, as it’s similar to how Allen designed the initial search page. You can customize this page further if you want, but for this tutorial you’ll need the following elements:

• A button with the text “Send Email”
• A repeating group that displays a list of created emails and includes fields for subject line, body, send date, and a “delete” button

To pull the appropriate data source on the email repeating group, set the Type of content to Email and the Data source to “Search for emails” in which Shop = Current User’s Managed Shop.

4. Create and delete email functionality

You’re ready to look at creating, scheduling, and deleting these emails. Start by building two popups to set up the logic that creates and deletes email records.

First will be a schedule email popup for creating an email. This needs inputs to capture the subject line, the body, and the send date. The second will be a much simpler delete popup, which just acts as a confirmation if someone presses the delete button or icon in the cell.

Once you have these both designed the way you want, hook up the logic for creation and deletion.

To create an email, make sure the button you added to your page opens the schedule email popup. Then add a workflow to the button: Create a new Email. Define the subject line, the body, and the send date using the inputs from the popup. Define the shop attached to the Email as Current User’s Managed Shop (the shop the current user manages). And define the User as Current User (the sender).

It’s good practice to also add a step that resets all relevant inputs so that the fields are blank the next time the user presses the button.

Now program your delete functionality. On your new delete popup, specify the Type of content to be Email. Leave the data source empty. Now add a workflow to your delete button. Add a step to “Display data in a group/popup” and select your delete popup. This allows the page to send data right before it displays the popup (in this case, the email). Then, like before, add a step to show the popup. Now add a workflow to the cancel email button. Add a step that Deletes the Parent Group’s Email, then hide the popup.

Now you have a means of creating and deleting emails. But none of them are actually being scheduled to send. For that, turn to backend workflows.

5. Backend workflows: scheduling and sending an email

To enable backend workflows in your app, go to the settings tab and navigate to the API subtab. Click Enable Workflow API and backend workflows. You can then open the backend workflows virtual page from the editor’s left-hand navigation.

The backend workflows tab has different options compared to the regular workflow tab. Backend workflows run independently of any page in your app, so there’s no specific page you’re on.

Here’s what you’ll be programming: a workflow that sends emails to a list of users, and another workflow that schedules the first workflow to run at a later time.

To start, create a new API workflow. Call it “schedule-email.” Then add a parameter. This tells the workflow that it will need to interact with a data record, which you can dynamically assign later. For now, create a parameter called “email” and change its Type to Email.

Next, create another API workflow and call it “send-email.” Add a parameter called “email” which is Type Email. Again, the actual email will be provided later; this just tells your backend workflows what kind of data to expect.

Now you’ve set up your two backend workflows. Program them.

For “schedule-email,” add an action and select Schedule API workflow. Set API Workflow to “send-email” and for Scheduled date set the parameter to email’s Send Date.

When you schedule an API workflow, Bubble returns the scheduled workflow instance’s unique ID. Save that ID if you want to cancel the scheduled workflow later. Earlier, you created functionality to delete emails from your database, but this doesn’t delete the record of a scheduled workflow. It’s a good idea to capture that ID and attach it to the email.

As a short detour, head to the data tab and add a new custom field to the Email data type called “Workflow ID.” Bubble generates this ID as a string of characters, so keep the Type as text.

Now, back in backend workflows, under “schedule-email,” add a second action to Make changes to an Email. The email to change is just the email record parameter. Set the Workflow ID field to equal Result of Step 1. You’re attaching the record of the scheduling to the email itself.

Now tackle the “send-email” workflow. Find the send email action. Decide whether the primary recipient should be the shop owner, a verified sender or test address, or the follower list. In the video, the email is sent to Current User’s email with followers BCC’d via Do a search for Follows constrained to the right shop, then :each item’s User’s email. For Subject and Body, pull the parameter email’s subject line and body. Test this behavior in development before relying on it in production.

Your “schedule-email” workflow will fire the “send-email” workflow at the appropriate time. Now you just need to make sure that you fire “schedule-email.”

Go back to the shop-admin page. Find the workflow that triggers when a new email is created. The first action in this workflow should already be to Create a new Email. After that step, add Schedule API workflow and have that workflow be “schedule-email.”

This step asks for a Scheduled date. However, this isn’t asking when you want to send the email. Instead, it’s asking when you want to trigger the “schedule-email” workflow, which is right now. Enter Current date/time. And for the email, select Result of Step 1.

6. Backend workflows: canceling an email

One more backend workflow to create: canceling a scheduled email. Back in the backend workflows tab, create a new API workflow called “cancel-email.”

Like before, it will just take in an email parameter.

Your first action will be to Cancel a scheduled API workflow. You’ll need to reference a particular ID to complete this step. You saved that workflow ID onto the email itself. So all you need for the Scheduled API ID is the email’s Workflow ID.

Finally, you just need to trigger this “cancel-email” workflow from the frontend of your app. Go back to the shop-admin page and find the delete popup. Add a step to the cancel email button to Schedule API workflow: Cancel-email. Make sure it happens right now by setting Scheduled date as Current date/time. And pass through the email on the popup as the email to pass through for the parameter.

Note: You have the step to delete the email entry in this workflow from earlier. Keep that step and have it happen after the Schedule API workflow action. Or, remove it from this workflow and add it to the backend workflow instead. It’s up to you.

7. Final testing and the logs tab

All your functionality is set. To test this, you need some sample users in the database. You’ll want at least two users: one as the admin (who’ll send the email) and one as a follower (who’ll receive the email).

Once you create and schedule an email to be sent:

• In the data tab > app data: Verify that the email record has been created and stored in the database.
• In the logs tab > scheduler: Choose the correct Development or Live environment, set a date/time, and click Show to view upcoming scheduled API workflows. Note that workflows scheduled in the past may run immediately and not appear in the scheduler.

Finally, if you test canceling the email, you should see that the email disappears from your database and the scheduler in the logs tab.

You have a working frontend and backend for a two-sided marketplace MVP.

Common questions from builders

Below is a summarized Q&A from the accompanying Bubble tutorial sessions with Allen, John, and Maria.

Now that we have a page for browsing the marketplace, what would you add next to the frontend?

Allen: “I’d polish the frontend a bit. We can add more branding, colors, and styles. Bubble’s styles, reusable elements, responsive controls, and the Bubble AI Agent can help standardize colors, spacing, element sizes, and patterns across your app. A well-designed page uses the same color palette, element sizes, and shapes throughout the website. It could be good to add sorting options, like by genre or book type. And when you click on a genre or book type, it automatically filters the repeating group to show only those items. We could also add the ability to mark that you’ve read or own a certain book, so it’s not shown as an option to buy.”

What’s the underlying difference between using option sets versus data types?

Allen: “It’s a common question because data types and option sets on Bubble seem similar. Option sets are useful when you have a fixed list of options for a thing. For example, days of the week or genres in a book marketplace app. However, if you want more flexibility or user interaction, like creating or editing options, you should use a database and data type.”

For users who have sample data in a CSV file, is there a way to upload it into Bubble?

Allen: “Yes. On paid Bubble plans, go to the data tab and the app data subtab. You can upload a CSV file and map its columns to the fields of your data type. Make sure the CSV has a header row, since Bubble validates the upload before creating records — if any row fails, the upload will be rejected. There’s also a button on the app data subtab that lets you modify records in bulk based on a CSV using unique IDs. And you can export data from the current database view to a CSV.”

Could you speak on what it means to make sure all elements are responsive?

Allen: “Responsive design means thinking about how the layout adapts to different screen sizes. I prefer to first design for the default width (usually laptop size) and then fine-tune the design for different screen widths. Each element has a default behavior as the screen width changes. Sometimes it tries to adapt, and sometimes it doesn’t. When designing responsively, first check the default appearance at different screen widths. Then, adjust individual elements as needed.

Here’s an extra tip: Sometimes it’s easier to create a separate element that only appears on certain screen sizes. That’s better than trying to use the same container and force it to work across all screen sizes.”

Would it be possible for the interface to display the first ten rows and load more as a user scrolls?

Allen: “Bubble includes performance-oriented defaults and tools, but for large result sets you should design searches, repeating groups, and pagination or load-more patterns deliberately. Let’s say when the page loads, we display ten items. To load more, we have the user click a button. When the button is clicked, a workflow can update the query of the repeating group or table to show more items. That’s just one method — there are plenty of others.”

How do you know what data types you need, and how do you get them to interact with each other?

Allen: “It’s up to you, but consider data types like real-life objects or agents in a system. Like books or sellers in a marketplace. Each object or agent has different properties, like a book’s title or a seller’s name. These properties become fields in your database.”

Can you speak to Bubble being a relational database and how to decide between relationship types?

Allen: “If you’re a software engineer, you might be familiar with the idea of a ‘join.’ If you have information in one type of data that can be displayed as a record from another type of data, think about how you want to connect them. For example, let’s say you have a data type for books and another for sellers. You could link them by making the ‘seller’ field in the book data type part of the seller data type. This means that each book would be connected to a specific seller. Another way to do it would be to keep a list of books in the seller data type. This means each seller would be connected to a list of books they are selling.”

Maria: “I’d recommend not keeping long lists in one field. For example, in a marketplace app, you could store the list of users following a shop or the shops a user is following. The first list can grow too big quickly if thousands of users follow the same shop. The second list is safer because it’s unlikely for one person to follow thousands of shops. We used one of these list fields and a separate table to relate a user to a shop. The best choice depends on your app and what you need to show in your design.”

What’s the difference between a frontend and backend workflow?

Maria: “Backend workflows run on the server, while frontend workflows run on the user’s computer. Backend workflows are asynchronous, meaning you can’t guarantee they’ll be completed by a certain time. Frontend workflows can be synchronous, so you can predict their order. They require a user to be on the page, so if the page closes, the workflow will stop. Backend workflows will continue executing even if the user leaves the page.”

Could you explain what an endpoint is?

John: “We use endpoints and backend workflow or API workflow fairly interchangeably. All this is describing is one of those API workflows that you want to set up in your application and call from a variety of places. The API workflow that Maria set up at the end of her video to send out these emails is an endpoint.”

How do you decide when to add delays in backend workflows?

Maria: “If you plan to run a backend workflow on an extensive list of items, it’s a good idea to spread them out. This way, you avoid overwhelming your app and potentially showing users problems on the frontend. If you’re trying to process a very large list over an extended period, consider using recursive workflows. In short, this is a safety measure you can use when trying to change a lot of data at once.”

What are good use cases for backend workflows?

John: “When users create data on your app, you may not want to keep it indefinitely. You can set up a background process to schedule the removal of records after a certain period, like every year. This way, you don’t have to hold onto the data for too long. Email campaigns are another example. Once a user signs up for your app, you can schedule a series of emails to welcome them, remind them of features, and more.”

Does Bubble support SMS messages?

Maria: “You can look for SMS plugins in the Bubble Marketplace, or connect directly to a provider such as Twilio using the API Connector, now available as its own editor tab. The Bubble AI Agent can also help guide you through API setup.”

What’s your advice on debugging?

John: “For frontend debugging, we have the debugger tool, which you can use while running workflows to test and verify expected results. For backend debugging, use the logs tab — including server logs and the scheduler — to check whether backend workflows ran, whether conditions prevented actions from running, and what errors occurred. Another tip is to manually insert an action in workflows to log a record or send an email when something’s not working correctly. This helps you understand what’s happening at each step.”

How should users improve search performance with a large data source?

Maria: “To improve search performance at scale, follow Bubble’s database and search best practices: use efficient constraints, avoid expensive advanced filters when possible, and consider denormalizing fields needed for direct searching. Sometimes, adding a field to a data type allows direct searching instead of searching linked data types inside a repeating group. Best practices for scalability are learned over time.”

How can users iterate and add features to a live app?

John: “Version control is a tool built into Bubble. It helps you manage changes to your app. When you add new features, you can use version control to make a copy of your live app, build the new features on the copy, test the new features to make sure they work, and merge the changes back to your live app.”

Start building your marketplace app

You now have the foundation for a two-sided marketplace MVP. You set up a database structure for shops and products, built a dynamic search page with filters, created seller admin tools, and implemented backend workflows for automated email campaigns. The next step is to customize the design, add payment processing through Stripe Connect or another provider, review your privacy rules before handling real user data, and invite your first users. Get started for free and bring your marketplace idea to life — use Bubble AI to move fast, then edit visually to make it your own.

Frequently asked questions about marketplace apps

What is the difference between a marketplace app and an e-commerce store?

An e-commerce store sells inventory owned by a single business. A marketplace app connects independent buyers and sellers, with the platform acting as a facilitator rather than the primary retailer. The marketplace owner provides infrastructure and trust mechanisms while third parties provide the products or services. Some hybrid marketplaces also sell their own inventory alongside third-party sellers.

Do I need to know how to code to build a marketplace app?

You do not need coding experience to build with Bubble. Bubble is a fully visual AI app builder: You can use AI to generate and iterate quickly, then use the visual editor to design interfaces, structure databases, configure privacy rules, and build workflows you can understand and modify directly.

What features does a marketplace app need to launch?

A minimum viable product for a marketplace needs user authentication, a way for sellers to create listings, a search function for buyers, and a secure payment gateway to process transactions. Features like messaging, reviews, and automated notifications can be added after you’ve launched and gathered user feedback.

How long does it take to build a marketplace app?

Timelines depend on scope, but Bubble’s AI app generation and visual editor can help you get from idea to marketplace MVP faster than traditional development — then refine the app visually as you validate with real users. The exact timeline depends on the complexity of your features and how much customization you need.

Is the marketplace app the same as Facebook Marketplace?

Facebook Marketplace is a specific feature within the Facebook platform for local buying and selling. A standalone marketplace app is an independent platform built for a specific niche, like Airbnb for short-term rentals or Upwork for freelance services.