Lovable AI lets you build web apps by describing what you want in plain English. No coding, no terminal, no IDE — just type and get a working app. That pitch sounds great until you look at the lovable ai pricing details: the free plan gives you 5 credits per day, and every message you send burns credits. But credits are only part of the cost — Lovable also charges separately for cloud hosting and AI features.
This guide breaks down what each plan costs, how credits work, and what you’ll actually pay when you factor in everything — based on Lovable’s official pricing page and documentation.
I’ve since tested Lovable on the free plan — see my Lovable AI tutorial where I built and deployed a blog with just 2.9 credits. This pricing guide is based on official documentation.
Lovable AI Pricing at a Glance
Here’s the current plan structure as of April 2026:
| Free | Pro | Business | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $25/mo | $50/mo | Custom |
| Monthly credits | — | 100 | 100 | Volume-based |
| Daily credits | 5 (30/mo max) | 5 (up to 150/mo total) | 5 (up to 150/mo total) | Custom |
| Private projects | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Custom domain | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Code mode | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Credit rollover | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Credit top-ups | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| SSO | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Users | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | All employees |
Both Pro and Business are shared across unlimited users — the price covers the workspace, not per-seat.
Is Lovable AI Free?
Yes. Lovable has a free plan with no credit card required and no time limit — it’s not a trial.
When I signed up, my free account showed 10 credits available — 5 daily credits plus 5 bonus credits that expire in one year. The bonus credits may vary by account or promotion.
The free plan gives you 5 credits per day, resetting at midnight. That’s a maximum of 30 credits per month if you use it every single day. You can deploy to up to 5 lovable.app subdomains.
A note on project visibility: Lovable’s official sources currently conflict here. The pricing page references “public projects” on the Free plan, while the plans-and-credits documentation lists “private projects” as a Free feature. If this distinction matters for your use case, check both sources before signing up — this area appears to be in transition.
What you don’t get on Free: Code mode (viewing and editing the generated code inside Lovable), custom domains, credit rollover, and credit top-ups. The Lovable badge stays on your deployments.
What can you do with 5 daily credits? According to Lovable’s documentation, credit costs vary by message complexity:
| Prompt | What it does | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| “Make the button gray” | Style change | 0.50 |
| “Remove the footer” | Component removal | 0.90 |
| “Add authentication” | Auth logic | 1.20 |
| “Build a landing page with images” | Full page creation | 2.00 |
So 5 credits per day means roughly 3-4 meaningful interactions before you’re done for the day. You can start a project, make a couple of tweaks, and then wait until tomorrow. For exploring the platform and building a simple prototype over several days, free works. For anything with a deadline, you’ll hit the wall quickly.
One important limit: daily credits don’t roll over. If you don’t use today’s 5, they’re gone tomorrow.
How Lovable Credits Work
Understanding credits is the key to understanding lovable ai pricing — every message you send to the AI consumes credits. But not all messages cost the same amount. Many messages cost less than 1 credit, while complex ones cost more.
Daily credits (5/day): Every plan gets these, including Free. They reset at midnight and don’t roll over day to day.
Monthly credits (100+ on paid plans): These are your main budget on Pro and Business. They roll over for one billing cycle on monthly plans, and for the remainder of your annual term on annual plans. If you cancel, unused credits expire at the end of your current billing period.
On the Pro plan, you get 100 monthly credits plus 5 daily credits — a theoretical maximum of 150 credits per month.
Credit top-ups: Available on Pro and Business only. You can buy additional credits in 50-credit increments (minimum 50, maximum 1,000 per purchase). Pricing: $15 per 50 credits on Pro, $30 per 50 credits on Business. Top-up credits are valid for 12 months.
How to check your usage: Click your project name at the top left to see your remaining credits and when they reset. Your credit bar shows how much you’ve used and what’s left.
I sent a simple prompt — “Build a personal blog with a hero section, about page, and contact form” — and the credit balance dropped from 10 to 8.1, meaning that single prompt cost about 1.9 credits. At that rate, 5 daily credits would give you roughly 2-3 app-building prompts per day.
The Hidden Cost: Lovable Cloud + AI
This is the part most lovable ai pricing guides skip, and it’s crucial for understanding what you’ll actually pay.
Your subscription credits cover building — sending messages to generate and modify your app. But once your app is deployed and running, there’s a separate cost for hosting and AI features through Lovable Cloud.
Every workspace gets free monthly allowances:
- $25/month for Cloud hosting (database, auth, storage, edge functions)
- $1/month for AI features inside deployed apps
These allowances reset on the first of each month and don’t roll over. As of April 2026, even Free plan users get these allowances (this is a temporary promotion through at least May 2026 — check the official docs for current status).
What happens when you exceed the free allowance? Cloud and AI usage beyond the included amount is billed separately based on actual consumption. Only paid plan users can add funds to cover additional usage. If your deployed app gets meaningful traffic, database queries, or uses AI features, this becomes a real cost on top of your subscription.
What this means in practice: For a small prototype or MVP with light traffic, the $25 free Cloud allowance is likely enough. But if you’re running a real app with users, the “actual pay” is your subscription ($25-50/month) plus whatever Cloud and AI usage your app generates. This is why the title of this guide says “What You Actually Pay” — the subscription price alone doesn’t tell the full story.
Pro ($25/month) — The Main Individual Plan
Pro is where most serious users will land. For $25/month (or ~$21/month billed annually):
- 100 monthly credits + 5 daily credits (up to 150/month)
- Code mode — view and edit the generated code inside Lovable
- Custom domains — connect your own domain to deployed apps
- Credit rollover — unused monthly credits carry over one cycle
- Credit top-ups — buy more credits mid-cycle when needed
- Remove Lovable badge — clean deployments
- Workspace roles and permissions
How far do 150 credits go? Based on Lovable’s documentation, a basic MVP takes 150-300 credits over a few weeks. One Pro month might cover a simple app; a complex project could require two months or top-ups.
Credit scaling: Pro starts with 100 monthly credits at $25/month, but you can scale up — 200 credits for $50/month, 400 for $100/month, all the way to 10,000 credits for $2,250/month. This flexibility means $25 is a starting price; heavy users may pay significantly more.
For comparison, other AI coding tools handle pricing differently. Claude Code and Windsurf use quota-based systems, while Cursor uses limited request counts. See my Claude Code Pricing and Windsurf AI Pricing guides.
Business ($50/month) — For Teams
Business adds team and security features on top of everything in Pro:
- SSO — single sign-on for team authentication
- Team workspace with restricted project access
- Design templates — reusable templates across projects
- Role-based access control
- Security center
- Opt out of data training
Business also starts at 100 monthly credits ($50/month) and scales the same way as Pro — but at roughly double the price per credit tier.
Enterprise pricing is based on a platform fee tied to company size, covering all employees. It adds SCIM, audit logs, publishing controls, dedicated support, and onboarding services. Contact Lovable directly for a quote.
Student Discount
Lovable offers up to 50% off Pro for verified students at lovable.dev/students. This brings Pro down to roughly $12.50/month — the most accessible paid tier for students.
Annual billing also saves roughly 20%: Pro drops from $25 to ~$21/month, Business from $50 to ~$42/month.
How Lovable Compares to Other AI Tools
At $25/month for Pro, lovable ai pricing sits in a specific spot:
| Tool | Type | Price | Credits/Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lovable | Prompt-to-app | $25/mo | 100 monthly + 5 daily (up to 150/mo) + separate Cloud costs |
| Bolt.new | Prompt-to-app | $25/mo | 10M tokens/mo, token-based |
| Cursor | AI code editor | $20/mo (Free available) | Request-based limits |
| Windsurf | AI code editor | $20/mo (Free available) | Quota-based (daily/weekly) |
| Claude Code | Terminal AI agent | $20/mo (no free tier) | Quota-based |
The key difference: Lovable and Bolt.new are app builders — you describe what you want and get a deployed app. Cursor, Windsurf, and Claude Code are coding tools — they help you write code, but you manage files and deployment yourself.
If you can’t write code at all, Lovable or Bolt.new are the relevant options. If you’re willing to learn an IDE or terminal, the coding tools are $5/month cheaper and offer more control.
I tested Cursor and Claude Code directly on the same project — see my Lovable AI Alternatives guide for details.
FAQ
Is Lovable AI free?
Yes. The free plan gives you 5 credits per day (up to 30/month) with deployment to 5 lovable.app subdomains — no credit card needed. You don’t get Code mode, custom domains, credit rollover, or top-ups on the free plan. Project visibility on the free plan is currently described differently across Lovable’s official sources — check the pricing page and docs for the latest. Every workspace also currently receives $25/month in free Cloud hosting as a temporary promotion (check official Cloud docs for current status).
How many credits do I need to build an app?
According to Lovable’s documentation, credit costs range from about 0.5 for a simple styling change to about 2.0 for generating a full landing page. Based on these figures, a basic MVP might take 150-300 credits over several weeks. On the free plan (up to 30 credits/month), that would take several months of daily use. On Pro (up to 150 credits/month), a simple app could be feasible in one billing cycle — though actual usage will depend on your project’s complexity and how many iterations you need.
What I’d Recommend
If you’re curious about Lovable, the free plan is a genuine starting point — not a trial with a countdown. Five daily credits are enough to see how the platform works.
Keep in mind that lovable ai pricing doesn’t end at the subscription. Once your app is deployed, Cloud hosting and AI usage are billed separately. For small projects, the free Cloud allowance covers it. For anything with real traffic, factor in the additional usage-based costs.
Looking for alternatives to Lovable? See my Lovable AI Alternatives comparison. For a broader view of AI coding tools, check my Best AI Coding Assistant overview.
Prices based on lovable.dev/pricing and official documentation as of April 2026. Lovable Cloud pricing from official Cloud docs. Student discount from lovable.dev/students. Plans, credits, and features may change — check the linked sources for the latest.