How to build price comparison in Bubble

To build price comparison in Bubble, you store product data in your database, fetch prices from external sources using the API Connector or scheduled backend workflows, then display all price entries for the same product and sort them by price. The core idea is: your Bubble app never “scrapes” sites directly (Bubble can't do browser scraping). Instead, you use APIs, your own backend microservice, or CSV uploads, then compare stored prices inside Bubble with a simple repeating group sorted by price.

Core Structure

You need two data types: Product and PriceEntry. A Product is the main item (e.g., iPhone 15), and PriceEntry stores each vendor’s price for that product.

• Product: title (text), image (image), description (text)
• PriceEntry: product (Product), vendor_name (text), vendor_url (text), price (number), last\_updated (date)

Getting Prices Into Bubble

Bubble cannot scrape HTML pages. You must get data via an API, CSV upload, or an external service sending a webhook. The usual professional flow is API Connector + backend workflow.

• Use API Connector to call vendor APIs if they provide price endpoints.
• Or set up your own external scraper that sends results to Bubble via a POST webhook (Bubble backend workflow with “Detect request data”).
• Or manually upload CSVs into Bulk Data Upload for early testing.

Backend Workflow to Store Prices

You create a backend workflow called “save-price”. It receives product_id, vendor_name, vendor\_url, and price, then creates or updates a PriceEntry.

// Example Bubble backend workflow action logic (conceptual shape)
Create a new PriceEntry:
product = Product (search for Product where unique_id = request.data.product_id:first item)
vendor_name = request.data.vendor_name
vendor_url = request.data.vendor_url
price = request.data.price
last_updated = Current date/time

Displaying Comparison

• On the Product page, add a Repeating Group with type PriceEntry.
• Data source: Search for PriceEntry where product = Current page Product.
• Sort by: price (ascending).

This automatically shows cheapest first.

Keeping Prices Fresh

Use a scheduled backend workflow (recurring event) to re-fetch prices daily or hourly. The workflow calls API endpoints, receives updated prices, then updates PriceEntry entries.

• Schedule every X hours.
• Run API calls inside the workflow.

Privacy Rules

Set Privacy Rules on PriceEntry to allow everyone to view but not modify. Example: “When current user is logged out → allow view all fields, deny modify”.

This structure is simple, scalable, and fully native to Bubble, and it follows exactly how real price comparison apps are built without relying on unsupported scraping.