AI App Builder Pricing Compared: What Bolt, Lovable, Replit and v0 Charge to Build and Run
All four offer a free starting point, and paid plans start between $20 and $30 a month on monthly billing, or EUR 25 for Lovable. The plan price buys an allowance for building; hosting, databases and traffic are where the bills split apart.
By Elias Brandt · Updated 9 Oct 2026 · About 14 min read · Plan terms taken from each tool profile
The short answer
Want hosting and a database in one account? Bolt and Lovable both host the app and create the database for you. Bolt counts tokens; Lovable counts credits per message and draws hosting beyond its grants from the same balance.
Want a running app with usage-based hosting? Replit Core is $20/month with $20 of credits; transfer, compute, requests and production databases are billed by usage on top.
Want a reviewed handoff to Vercel? v0 Plus is $30/user/month with $30 of credits per user. Vercel hosting, databases and external APIs are a separate budget line.
AI app builder pricing at a glance
Four builders, side by side
| Builder | Fits | Free plan | First paid plan | Usage counted in | Catch to check |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Bolt | A prompt-built web app hosted on a bolt.host address with a database included | $0: 300K tokens a day and 1M a month | Pro, $25 per month billed monthly ($18 per month billed yearly) | Tokens | A Free site stops serving when the monthly hosting limit runs out |
 Lovable | A chat-built app whose code stays synced to your own Git repository | EUR 0: 5 build credits a day, up to 30 a month | Pro, EUR 25 billed monthly or EUR 21 per month billed yearly, incl. VAT, for 100 credits | Credits per message | Hosting and in-app AI beyond the monthly grants use the same credits as building |
 v0 | An interface reviewed as a branch diff and preview, then deployed on Vercel | $0: seven messages a day | Plus, $30/user/month | Dollar credits, $30 per user a month | Vercel hosting, databases and external APIs sit outside the plan |
 Replit | A small operational app taken from code to a deployment in one workspace | Starter: limited daily Agent credits | Core, $20/month; $18/month billed annually | Dollar credits, $20 on Core | Transfer, compute, requests and production databases are billed by usage |
Plan names and amounts from each builder’s profile, which shows the date its plan terms were checked. Lovable shows EUR including VAT to a visitor in Germany.
How does AI app builder pricing work?
Three units behind four price tags
In shortThe same monthly price can buy very different amounts of building.
| Unit | Builder | What a month buys | What moves the count |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tokens | Bolt | Free: 300K a day, 1M a month. Pro: starts at 10M a month with no daily limit | Larger projects use more tokens per message |
| Credits per message | Lovable | Free: 30 build credits a month. Pro: 100 credits a month, in tiers up to 10,000 | Plan mode is 1 credit per message; Build mode prices each message on the work done and shows the cost on every reply |
| Dollar credits per user | v0 | Plus and Business: $30 of included monthly credits per user | Per-user credits and a purchased shared pool are separate balances |
| Dollar credits per account | Replit | Core: $20 of included credits. Pro: $100 | Agent work and live services draw on the allowance; hosting usage adds to it |
Sources: Bolt tokens, Lovable credits and usage, v0 credits, Replit pricing.
Why the same plan buys less as the app grows
In shortBudget for the second month of building, not the first afternoon.
- Bolt says token use per message rises with project size, so a Pro allowance stretches less far on a large app than on a first prototype.
- Lovable charges Build mode on the work done. The credits a feature needs are known only after it runs, and a complex request can use far more than the published examples.
Per person or per workspace
In shortFor a team, the billing unit matters more than the entry price.
| Builder | How a team is billed | Team of three, monthly billing |
|---|---|---|
| Bolt | Teams is $30 per member per month billed monthly ($27 yearly); each member’s tokens are their own and are not shared | 3 × $30 = $90 a month |
| Lovable | Unlimited workspace members on every plan; the plan price covers one shared credit balance, and on Pro admins can set a monthly credit limit per member | One Pro plan, EUR 25 billed monthly, with 100 shared credits |
| v0 | $30/user/month, each user with $30 of included credits; purchased shared-pool credits are separate | 3 × $30 = $90 a month, with $90 of individual credits |
| Replit | Core covers up to five collaborators and Pro up to 15; a per-collaborator fee is not covered in the sources checked | Core, $20/month |
Are AI app builders free?
In shortEach free plan stops somewhere different: a daily cap, a monthly cap, or a link with a shelf life.
| Builder | Free allowance | Publishing on the free plan | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bolt | 300K tokens a day and 1M a month; 10MB uploads | bolt.host address with Bolt branding; hosting up to 10 GB and 333,333 requests a month | The site goes offline until the next cycle at the hosting limit. At the daily token cap, files can still be edited by hand in Code view |
| Lovable | 5 build credits a day, up to 30 a month; 20 Cloud and 4 AI credits a month | Up to 5 lovable.app domains; no custom domain; read-only code editor | The 30-credit monthly cap, and no move beyond the default database instance |
| v0 | Seven messages a day; new users get $5 once per personal or team account, while existing users keep a $5 monthly allowance | Free-plan publishing is not covered in the sources checked | Generation pauses; there are no automatic overage charges |
| Replit | Limited daily Agent credits up to a monthly cap, plus monthly credits for databases, storage and publishing; Lite build only | One free published app, which goes down after 30 days | Full build and connectors need a paid plan. The pricing page as read shows no Starter card, so confirm the free plan in your account |
Sources: Bolt hosting plans, Lovable subscription plans, v0 credits, Replit Starter plan.
What each AI app builder’s plans include
In shortSame layout for each builder: plans, what the price covers, what it leaves to other bills, and what happens at the limit.
Bolt: tokens for building, hosting limits for running
Fits a prompt-built web app with hosting and a database in one account
Build tokens and hosting run out on different schedules.
- Free 300K tokens a day
- Entry from $25 per month Pro, billed monthly; $18 per month billed yearly
Bolt builds websites, web apps, slides and prototypes from prompts, Figma or GitHub, and publishes them to a free bolt.host address. A database with authentication, file storage and server functions is created on demand.
Plans and terms
- Pro
- Starts at 10M tokens a month with no daily limit, custom domains, up to 1M web requests and 100MB uploads.
- Teams
- $30 per member per month billed monthly ($27 yearly).
- Token rollover
- Paid tokens reset on the renewal date and roll over for one more month; cancelling loses them at the end of the cycle.
- Larger Pro tiers
- Mentioned in the Help Center, but the pricing-page tier selector was not read, so no price is listed for them.
Included in the plan
Build tokens, a bolt.host address, the database and authentication; on Pro, a custom domain and 30 GB and 1 million requests of hosting a month.
Billed or budgeted outside it
Hosting traffic beyond the Pro allowance, through optional pay-as-you-go up to a spending cap you set. Hosting limits are shared across every project on the account.
When the allowance runs out
On Free, the daily cap ends token use for the day, though Code view edits still work, and the site goes offline at the monthly hosting limit. Subscriptions are non-refundable.
See the Bolt profile for plans, limits and sources.
Visit Bolt (opens in a new tab)
Sources: Bolt pricing, Bolt tokens, Bolt hosting plans.
Lovable: one credit balance for building and running
Fits a chat-built app with code synced to your own repository
Priced by credits, not seats.
- Free 5 build credits a day
- Entry from EUR 25 Pro, billed monthly; EUR 21 per month billed yearly, incl. VAT
Lovable turns chat prompts into web apps and websites, hosts them with a built-in backend for database, authentication, storage, edge functions and scheduled jobs, and keeps the code in two-way sync with GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket on every plan.
Plans and terms
- Pro
- 100 credits a month in tiers up to 10,000: EUR 25 to EUR 2,250 on monthly billing, EUR 21 to EUR 1,875 on yearly billing.
- Business
- EUR 50 billed monthly or EUR 42 per month billed yearly for 100 credits, with SSO, internal publishing and the Lovable API.
- Monthly grants
- Every plan adds 5 daily build credits, a 20-credit Cloud grant and a 4-credit AI grant.
Included in the plan
Building, publishing to lovable.app, the backend covered at first by the Cloud grant, and on paid plans custom domains, code editing and code download.
Billed or budgeted outside it
Nothing goes to another vendor by default, but heavier traffic, data, storage and in-app AI beyond the grants are paid from the same credits you build with.
When the allowance runs out
Buy a top-up: on Pro, 50 credits cost USD 15, or USD 0.30 a credit; on Business, USD 0.60 a credit. Credits are not refundable.
See the Lovable profile for plans, limits and sources.
Visit Lovable (opens in a new tab)
Sources: Lovable pricing, Lovable subscription plans, Lovable credits and usage.
v0: per-user credits, hosting on Vercel
Fits interface work reviewed as a diff before it reaches production
The plan buys generation; Vercel bills the running app.
- Free Seven messages a day
- Entry from $30/user/month Plus
v0 generates web interfaces and apps and ships them through Vercel preview and production deployments. For GitHub-backed projects, Publish creates or reuses a pull request, merges it into the base branch and waits for the production deployment.
Plans and terms
- Plus
- $30/user/month with $30 of included monthly credits per user.
- Business
- $100/user/month with the same $30 of credits per user, plus data opt-out and business controls.
- Expiry
- Unused monthly credits roll over for 65 days; purchased credits need an active paid plan and expire one year after purchase.
Included in the plan
Generation credits for each user, and the publishing workflow to Vercel preview and production deployments.
Billed or budgeted outside it
Vercel hosting, databases and external API charges. The deployment guide does not state who pays for hosting, so confirm the Vercel account and plan.
When the allowance runs out
Generation pauses, with no automatic overage charge; more credits can be bought on a paid plan.
See the v0 profile for plans, limits and sources.
Sources: v0 pricing, v0 credits, v0 deployments.
Replit: included credits, then usage billing
Fits a small app that has to run, not only preview
Included credits first, metered usage on top.
- Free Starter, limited daily Agent credits
- Entry from $20/month Core; $18/month billed annually
Replit combines app development, AI agent assistance and publishing in one web workspace. Agent modes depend on the plan: Starter has Lite build only, Core and Pro have Full build.
Plans and terms
- Core
- $20 of included credits, Full build and up to five collaborators.
- Pro
- $100/month; $90/month billed annually, with $100 of credits, up to 15 collaborators and 10 parallel agents.
- Database rollback
- Back up to 28 days, on Pro.
- Spend controls
- Usage limits and service shutdown limits cap paid consumption.
Included in the plan
Agent work up to the included credits; Core lists a 100 GiB outbound transfer allowance and unlimited published apps per the plan guide.
Billed or budgeted outside it
Published-app data transfer, Autoscale compute and requests, and production databases for compute time and storage, billed by usage.
When the allowance runs out
A shutdown limit protects the budget but can take a published app offline.
See the Replit profile for plans, limits and sources.
Visit Replit (opens in a new tab)
Sources: Replit pricing, Replit usage-based billing, Replit spending controls.
From prototype to running app: what the plan price leaves out
Cost lines after the app goes live
In shortRead across a row to see where each builder puts the same cost.
| Cost line | Bolt | Lovable | v0 | Replit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Included: Free 10 GB and 333,333 requests a month, Pro 30 GB and 1 million | Included on lovable.app, paid from the Cloud grant, then from credits | Through Vercel, as a separate budget line | Transfer, Autoscale compute and requests billed by usage |
| Database | Created on demand; Bolt says databases are unlimited | Built-in Cloud backend, paid from the same credits | Database charges are budgeted separately | Production databases billed for compute time and storage |
| Traffic beyond the allowance | Free: hard stop. Pro: optional pay-as-you-go up to a spending cap you set | Drawn from the shared credit balance | Billed on the Vercel side | Usage billing, with usage and shutdown limits |
| Custom domain | Pro and Teams | Paid plans, with automatic SSL | Not covered in the sources checked | Not covered in the sources checked |
| External services | Stripe, Supabase and Netlify integrations; their billing is not covered in the sources checked | Connectors such as Resend or ElevenLabs; their billing is not covered in the sources checked | External API charges, budgeted separately | Billing for connectors is not covered in the sources checked |
Sources: Bolt hosting, Lovable custom domains, v0 deployments, Replit usage-based billing.
Choose how the app runs before you estimate
In shortAn always-on service is a different workload from one that wakes on a request.
Replit’s publishing-cost documentation charges publishing against monthly credits first and bills extra once they are used, and it separates autoscaling, continuously running and scheduled deployments. For v0, Vercel’s infrastructure pricing lists functions, data transfer and storage as their own resources, so the v0 credit balance does not stand in for the deployed app’s bill.
Sources: Replit deployment pricing, Vercel pricing.
Count a shared allowance once
- Lovable’s credits pay for both building and running beyond the grants. Put the 100 Pro credits against the combined total, not against the build line and the hosting line separately.
- Bolt’s hosting limits are shared across all projects on the account, so a second live project shares the first one’s 1 million Pro requests.
What one month buys in each builder’s own unit
In shortThe profiles work these sums out on published rates. None of them is an observed bill.
| Builder | Case | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Bolt | Free daily cap against the monthly cap | Three full days at 300K use 900K tokens, leaving 100K for a fourth day before the 1M monthly cap |
| Lovable | Pro’s 100 credits in small edits | At 0.50 credits for a style change, about 200 edits (100 / 0.50), or about 83 feature-sized requests at 1.20 credits each |
| Lovable | Free plan in Plan mode | 30 build credits a month cover 30 Plan mode messages at 1 credit each, or about 60 small Build mode edits at 0.50 |
| Lovable | Top-up against the next tier on Pro | A 50-credit top-up costs USD 15 (USD 0.30 a credit); moving from 100 to 200 monthly credits adds USD 25 a month on monthly billing, USD 0.25 a credit |
| v0 | Three people on Plus | 3 x $30 = $90/month for three seats, with $90 of individual credits; hosting, databases, external APIs and the $2 daily login credits are not in that figure |
| Replit | Core billed annually against monthly | $20 x 12 = $240 versus $18 x 12 = $216, a $24 yearly difference |
Two decisions follow from the table. On Lovable, when the next tier costs less per credit than a top-up, a steady overrun is cheaper as a tier change than as repeated top-ups. On Bolt Free, the unused part of a daily allowance does not carry over, so a heavy first week can use most of the month.
How to estimate your own app’s monthly cost
Five steps from one user journey to a budget
In shortTurn one thing a user does into the meters it touches.
- Write one user journey. For example, a visitor submits an appointment request, the app stores it and notifies the owner, and the owner reviews it on a dashboard. List every service each step touches, including background jobs.
- Pick the hosting route from the section above.
- Price the building in the builder’s own unit, with the month arithmetic above as a starting scale.
- Add the running lines from the cost-line table, subtracting any shared pool once. Leave an unknown rate blank rather than writing zero.
- Set the stop rule. Bolt Pro has a spending cap for extra hosting, Replit has usage and shutdown limits, v0 pauses generation, and Lovable Pro can cap credits per member. Name who receives the usage alerts.
The app-cost worksheet holds this journey with empty fields for plan evidence, measured usage and account-specific rates. It is a note template, not a live price calculator.
Exit costs: code, data and domains
In shortCheck the way out before the data matters.
| Builder | Code out | Data out | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bolt | Download as a zip that runs locally with Node.js, or sync to GitHub | Duplicating a project copies table structure, not rows; moving data to Supabase needs Pro or Teams | Version History does not restore databases. After a downgrade, a connected domain stays online but cannot be republished |
| Lovable | Two-way Git sync on every plan; code download on paid plans | Lovable states that you own the apps, code and customer data you create | Server-side secrets and auth redirect URLs have to be set up again when the code runs elsewhere |
| v0 | GitHub-backed projects publish through a pull request | Not covered in the sources checked | GitHub branch protection still applies to Publish |
| Replit | Not covered in the sources checked | Database rollback up to 28 days on Pro | A free Starter link goes down after 30 days |
Sources: Bolt projects and files, Bolt database, Lovable deployment and ownership, v0 GitHub workflow.
Questions, and what this guide does not judge
Common questions
How much do AI app builders cost per month?
Entry paid plans among these four sit between $20 and $30 a month: Replit Core at $20/month, Bolt Pro at $25 per month billed monthly, v0 Plus at $30/user/month, and Lovable Pro at EUR 25 billed monthly including VAT. Those figures buy a building allowance only. A live app adds hosting, database and traffic charges that each vendor meters in its own way.
Are AI app builders free?
Yes, with limits that bite at different points. Bolt Free gives 300K tokens a day, Lovable Free gives 5 build credits a day capped at 30 a month, and v0 Free allows seven messages a day. Replit's Starter guide describes a free plan whose published app goes down after 30 days, although the Replit pricing page showed no Starter card when it was read.
Does an AI app builder subscription include hosting?
It depends on the builder. Bolt and Lovable host the app themselves, within monthly limits or grants. Replit includes credits but bills published-app transfer, compute, requests and production databases by usage. v0 deploys through Vercel, so hosting, database and external API costs need a budget of their own next to the v0 plan.
What happens when AI app builder credits run out?
Each builder reacts differently. v0 pauses generation and does not charge overage automatically. Lovable sells top-ups at USD 0.30 a credit on Pro. Bolt Free stops token use for the day and takes a site offline at its hosting limit, while Pro offers optional pay-as-you-go hosting up to a spending cap you set. Replit shutdown limits cap spending but can also stop a published app.
Can I take my code with me if I leave an AI app builder?
Bolt projects download as a zip that runs locally with Node.js or sync to GitHub, though duplicating a project leaves database rows behind. Lovable keeps two-way Git sync on every plan and allows a code download on paid plans. v0 publishes GitHub-backed projects through pull requests. Export options for Replit were outside the sources checked.
What this guide does not judge
Code quality, the credits a real app takes to finish, build speed and ease of use for a non-developer are not judged: the vendor pages behind this guide do not document them in a way we can check. The same goes for the cost of hiring an agency or developer, and for app store developer fees.
Base44 and Emergent appear in other pricing roundups and are left out until each has a profile with checked plan terms. For AI code editors that do not host the app, see Codex alternatives; for a simple marketing site with no app workflow, start from the website brief guide.
Build the same small appointment-request app on each builder’s free plan with fictional records and real notifications switched off. Read the token, credit or usage counter before and after each of five steps: first prompt, form, stored record, owner view and publish.
How this guide was made
Plans, units, limits and running costs come from the Bolt, Lovable, v0 and Replit profiles on this site, which cite the vendors’ pricing, help and billing pages and carry their own check dates. Replit deployment types and Vercel infrastructure resources come from the pages linked in that section. Sections follow the topics the top-ranking AI app builder pricing pages cover, limited to what the vendors document. No rating is given. See our editorial policy.
