Is Lovable free?
Yes, Lovable has a real free tier: 5 build credits per day (capped at 30 per month) plus 20 Cloud credits and 4 AI credits each month, enough to build and publish a working app on a lovable.app address. The catches: no custom domain, and daily credits expire at midnight. Paid starts at $25 a month for Pro with 100 credits (about $21 a month on annual billing); Business starts at $50.
Lovable plans at a glance (2026)
| Plan | Price | Credits | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 5 build credits/day (max 30/mo) + 20 Cloud credits/mo | Full builder, private projects, publishes to a lovable.app address |
| Pro | from $25/mo ($21/mo annual) | 100/mo, scales to 10,000/mo | Custom domain, badge removal, Code Mode, credits roll over |
| Business | from $50/mo | 100/mo plus team controls | SSO, data-training opt-out, per-user credit limits |
| Enterprise | custom | custom | Dedicated support, SCIM, audit logs |
The free plan is a real product, not a demo. You get the full prompt-to-app builder, private projects, and publishing to a yourapp.lovable.app address. The allowance: 5 build credits per day (unused ones expire at midnight, capped at 30 per month), plus monthly grants of 20 Cloud credits for the hosted backend (database, logins, storage) and 4 AI credits for AI features inside your app. What a credit buys: a simple edit costs about 0.5 credits, a moderate change 0.9 to 1.2, a complex feature about 1.7. Five daily credits is roughly 3 to 8 meaningful prompts a day: fine for learning the tool or a weekend prototype.
Where free stops: the moment a project gets serious. A real MVP burns far more than 30 credits in its first week, daily credits do not roll over, and you cannot connect your own domain, so anything customer-facing carries the lovable.app address. The Cloud grant is the quieter limit: 20 credits covers a lightly used backend, not real traffic. Treat free as an honest, open-ended trial: enough to know whether prompt-to-app building suits you before paying.
The paid ladder is usage-based. Pro starts at $25 a month for 100 monthly credits and scales inside the same plan (200 credits for $50, 400 for $100, up to 10,000 for $2,250), with annual billing about 16% cheaper: the entry tier drops to $21 a month. Pro is where the practical features live: custom domains, badge removal, Code Mode, and monthly credits that roll over instead of expiring. Running low mid-month costs $15 per 50 extra credits. Business starts at $50 a month and adds SSO, a data-training opt-out, and per-user credit limits; Enterprise is custom.
The buying advice follows from the meter. Building actual software (a portal, a booking tool, an app with logins)? Lovable free is the best trial in the category: start there, and upgrade to Pro the week the credits start deciding what you build. Just need a marketing site? A per-credit app builder is the expensive way to get one: 10Web generates a real WordPress site on flat pricing, and Webflow gives design control without a meter. Match the tool to the job before the credits match it for you.