Lovable pricing explained: what credits cost and what happens when they run out

How Lovable pricing actually works

Lovable has one currency and three ways to spend it. That's the whole model, and it's the thing most write-ups get wrong by describing credits as "AI messages".

Credits cover:

• Building — every message you send to plan, generate, edit or fix the app.

• Hosting and backend — database, network, storage, edge functions and realtime usage for published apps.

• Your app's own AI — calls your deployed app makes to AI models on behalf of its users.

Three very different activities, one meter. A month where you build nothing but a hundred people use your app still costs credits. That's the part worth understanding before you pick a plan.

Lovable plans in 2026 (official)

Verified August 2026, at monthly billing. Annual billing is available.

• Free — $0/month. 5 daily build credits, refreshing at 00:00 UTC, with a monthly cap of 30 · workspace-private projects · unlimited collaborators · 5 lovable.app domains · Cloud · community support.

• Pro — $25/month. 100 monthly credits · credit rollover · on-demand top-ups · unlimited lovable.app domains · custom domains · user roles and permissions · per-member credit limits · remove the Lovable badge · email support.

• Business — $50/month. 100 credits · team workspace · role-based access · internal publish · personal projects · SSO · security center · design templates · priority support.

• Enterprise — platform fee, volume-based pricing. Everything in Business plus governance and scale controls.

Read the Free line again, because it's easy to misread. It isn't 5 credits a day, every day — it's 5 a day up to 30 a month. Six productive days and you're done until the calendar flips.

And note what Pro and Business share: both give 100 credits. The extra $25 buys team and governance features — SSO, role-based access, internal publish — not more capacity. If you're a solo builder hitting your credit ceiling, Business doesn't solve it; top-ups do.

Credit rollover, precisely

Unused credits roll over at the end of each billing cycle for as long as the subscription stays active. They don't accumulate forever:

• Monthly plans — unused credits expire after 2 months.

• Annual plans — unused credits expire 1 month after the annual billing period ends.

In practice this smooths out an uneven build rhythm, which is genuinely useful: a quiet month funds a heavy one. What it doesn't do is let you bank a year of credits and cash them in at the end.

What happens when credits hit zero

This is the section to read twice, because it's where a billing question turns into a product question.

At zero:

• Building stops immediately. Expected, and fine — that's the meter doing its job.

• Your published site stays live and its pages keep serving. Good, and worth crediting Lovable for.

• AI features inside your deployed app stop working. If your app calls a model for its users — a summariser, a chat box, a classifier — that feature goes dark.

• Backend services may pause if the app relies on Cloud infrastructure.

So a Lovable subscription isn't purely a build tool. For any app that uses AI at runtime or leans on the managed backend, it's a runtime dependency. Your users experience your credit balance.

For a prototype that's irrelevant. For anything you've handed to a client, it's the kind of failure mode you want to know about before it happens rather than after.

Three scenarios with numbers

Scenario 1: trying Lovable out

You want to see whether it can build your idea. Free ($0) gives 5 credits a day, capped at 30 for the month.

The reality. Thirty credits is roughly a weekend of real work, spread across six days because of the daily cap. Enough to answer "does this tool understand what I'm asking for?" — not enough to finish. And you're on a lovable.app subdomain, since custom domains start at Pro.

Verdict: perfectly good as an evaluation. Not a plan you can ship on.

Scenario 2: building a real app

You're in it — iterating most weeks, a custom domain attached, the badge removed.

The math. Pro at $25 with 100 credits. Heavy weeks will overshoot; rollover from quieter months absorbs some of it, top-ups cover the rest. Hosting and any runtime AI draw from the same 100.

What you pay: $25/month, plus top-ups in build-heavy months. Fair value while the app is genuinely changing — this is the phase Lovable is priced for.

Scenario 3: the app is finished and people use it

Done building. Real users. Maybe an AI feature inside it.

The math. You send almost no build messages, but hosting and runtime AI keep drawing credits, and you keep paying $25 to make sure the balance never reaches zero — because zero means your app's AI features stop for your users.

What you pay: $25/month for a builder you've stopped using, with a runtime dependency attached. Exported to a flat-priced host it's $10/month with no meter, no balance to watch, and your own API key for any AI calls — billed by the model provider directly, at cost.

When to stay and when to move

• Still iterating — stay on Pro. Describing a change and watching it appear is the product, and $25 for that is a good deal.

• Team needs SSO, roles or internal publish — Business at $50. You're buying governance, not capacity.

• Hitting the ceiling as a solo builder — top up on Pro. Business gives you the same 100 credits.

• App is finished, users depend on it — export and host it flat. Your users shouldn't be downstream of a credit balance.

• Just evaluating — Free, and know that 30 credits a month is the real limit, not 5 a day.

FAQ

Is Lovable free?

There's a permanent Free plan at $0 with 5 build credits per day, refreshing at 00:00 UTC, capped at 30 per calendar month. It includes workspace-private projects, unlimited collaborators and 5 lovable.app domains, but not custom domains.

How much does Lovable cost per month?

Free is $0. Pro is $25/month with 100 credits. Business is $50/month, also with 100 credits, adding team and governance features. Enterprise is a custom platform fee with volume pricing. Annual billing is available. Verified August 2026.

What is a Lovable credit?

One unit covering three kinds of usage: messages you send to build or edit the app, hosting and backend services for published apps, and AI calls your deployed app makes for its users. It is not only an "AI message" counter.

Do Lovable credits roll over?

Yes, while the subscription is active. On monthly plans unused credits expire after 2 months; on annual plans, 1 month after the annual billing period ends.

What happens if I run out of Lovable credits?

Building stops at once. Your published site stays live and its pages keep serving, but AI features inside deployed apps stop working, and backend services may pause if the app relies on Cloud infrastructure.

Can I use a custom domain on Lovable?

Custom domains start on Pro. The Free plan gives you 5 lovable.app subdomains instead. If you're setting one up, our walkthrough on connecting a custom domain to a Lovable app covers the DNS side.

Is Business worth double Pro?

Only for teams. Both plans include 100 credits, so the extra $25 buys SSO, role-based access, internal publish, security center and priority support. As a solo builder you'd be paying for governance you don't use.

Can I export a Lovable app and host it myself?

Yes. The trade is real, though: you lose the visual build loop and the managed backend, and you gain a flat bill and independence from a credit balance. Check environment variables and database access policies before you switch anything over — those are what usually break on the way out. Our guide to hosting a Lovable app elsewhere walks through it.

Ask what your users depend on

Lovable's pricing is reasonable for the phase it's designed around: rapid, conversational building. The thing to be deliberate about is the overlap between build credits and runtime. While you're building, one meter for everything is simple and cheap. Once real people rely on the app, that same simplicity means your subscription balance is part of your production stack — and that's a decision worth making on purpose rather than discovering on a Sunday.

→ Host your finished Lovable app on livemy.app · Flat $10/month · No credit balance · Custom domain and SSL included.