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Free-tier limits explained
A free AI app builder plan limits you in two ways: a meter, which counts how much you ask the AI to do, and walls, which are features reserved for paid plans. The meter decides how far you get in a day. The walls decide whether what you built can be launched.
Vendors use different words for the same few ideas. Once you can name them, any pricing page takes five minutes to read. Everything below was read from the vendors’ own pages in November 2026; amounts are left out on purpose, because they change, and each claim is linked so you can see today’s figure.
The three meters
Section titled “The three meters”| Meter | What one unit is | What drains it faster | Where you can see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Messages | One request, whatever its size | Many small follow-ups | v0 lists a per-day message limit on Free |
| Tokens | Pieces of text the model reads and writes | Large projects and long outputs | Bolt lists a daily token limit and a monthly token allowance on Free |
| Credits | A unit the vendor defines | Depends on the vendor’s rules | Lovable, Base44, Replit |
Message meters are the easiest to plan around. A big request and a tiny one cost the same, so the skill is fitting sensible work into each message.
Token meters charge for volume. The model has to read your existing code before changing it, and that reading counts. v0’s pricing FAQ puts it plainly for its paid tiers: input tokens are measured on what you send and output tokens on what comes back. The practical effect is that the same request tends to cost more in week three than on day one.
Credit meters need the most reading, because the vendor sets the exchange rate. Lovable’s documentation gives Plan mode a flat per-message price, while in Build mode the “cost depends on the complexity of the request and the work completed”, and its illustrative examples price restyling a button at a fraction of what a landing page with images costs. Base44 defines credits as an allowance for “AI messages and integration actions” and adds that “exact usage varies based on the action and the selected AI model”.
More than one pool
Section titled “More than one pool”A plan can meter several things separately. Read for each pool, since running out of any one stops something.
- Building versus running. Lovable separates build credits from a monthly Cloud grant that covers the database, storage and compute of your deployed app.
- Building versus integrations. Base44 lists message credits and integration credits as two allowances.
- Building versus traffic. Bolt’s free tier has a ceiling on web requests to hosted sites, separate from tokens.
The two clocks
Section titled “The two clocks”Daily refills. Lovable’s free build credits arrive daily and stop at a monthly maximum. Replit says Starter users “receive daily credits for Agent usage, up to a monthly cap”. Bolt applies a daily token limit inside a monthly allowance.
No rollover on free. Lovable states that unused grants “do not roll over”, and Bolt’s page lists rollover of unused tokens under its paid plan. A day you skip is allowance you do not get back.
Together these mean a free plan rewards a little work every day and penalises the weekend marathon. Making free credits last is built around that fact.
The five walls
Section titled “The five walls”Walls do not run out. They are simply closed until you pay.
| Wall | What is held back | Verified example |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | Connecting your own domain name | Paid on Lovable, Bolt and Base44 |
| Badge | Removing the vendor’s branding from your app | Lovable’s “Edit with Lovable” badge; “Bolt branding on websites”; Replit’s “Made with Replit” badge |
| Publishing | How many apps go live, and for how long | Replit Starter: one free published app, whose link goes down automatically after a set period |
| Code access | Downloading or editing the code, or syncing to GitHub | Lovable: Git sync on Free, download and code editing on paid. Base44 lists GitHub integration under paid tiers |
| Backend capacity | Database size, uploads, idle time | Bolt lists expanded database capacity under Pro. Supabase limits active free projects and pauses idle ones |
Some plans also gate features. Replit’s Starter plan is limited to its lighter “Lite build” mode, and v0 lists access to all models from its first paid tier.
One more thing to confirm is visibility: whether a free project can be seen by other people. Plan tables do not always say. On the two where we could check it in November 2026, Lovable listed workspace-private projects and Bolt listed “public and private projects” on Free. Confirm the setting before you describe a confidential idea.
How to read a pricing page in five minutes
Section titled “How to read a pricing page in five minutes”- Find the unit. Is the free plan counted in messages, tokens or credits? If credits, find the page that says what one credit buys. It is usually in the documentation, not on the pricing page.
- Find the clocks. Daily, monthly or both? Does anything roll over?
- Convert to requests per day. This is the only number that tells you how a working session will feel. If the vendor publishes example costs, divide the daily allowance by a typical one.
- Count the pools. Is running the app, or calling integrations, metered separately from building it?
- Walk the walls. Domain, badge, publishing, code access, backend. Mark each as free, paid or unclear.
- Check the exit. Can you get the code out on the free plan, by download or by Git sync? If not, everything you build is a deposit you can only collect by upgrading.
- Read the date. Plan tables change. If a blog post and the vendor’s documentation disagree, the documentation wins.
When a detail is missing from the page, treat it as unknown, not as generous.
What the limits mean for your project
Section titled “What the limits mean for your project”Meters shape how you work, and walls shape what you can ship. To see what size of project fits inside a typical allowance, continue to What you can build for free. If the walls are the problem, the open-source route removes most of them and replaces the meter with a model bill of your own.
Frequently asked questions
What is a credit in an AI app builder?
A credit is the vendor's own unit for metering AI work. It has no fixed meaning across products. On some builders one message costs one credit. On others the cost of a message varies with how much work the AI did, so a small style change costs a fraction of what adding a login system costs.
What is the difference between credits, messages and tokens?
A message is one request you send. A token is a small piece of text the AI model reads or writes, so token metering charges for the actual volume of work, including the project code the model has to read. A credit is a vendor-defined unit that may map to either, or to a blend of both.
Why do my free credits run out so quickly?
Because building an app is mostly iteration. The first generation is one request, and the fixes, tweaks and error repairs that follow are dozens. On meters that charge by work done, requests also tend to cost more as the project grows, since the model has more code to read before it can change anything.
Are projects on a free plan public?
It depends on the vendor, so check. In November 2026 Lovable's plan table listed workspace-private projects on its free plan, and Bolt's listed public and private projects. If your idea is sensitive, confirm the visibility setting before you type the description in.
Does a free plan include a database and hosting?
Usually a small one. Free plans commonly bundle hosting on the vendor's subdomain and a basic database, with ceilings on size, traffic or the number of published apps. Some free backends are switched off after a period without activity. The paid tiers raise those ceilings and remove the expiry.