How Lovable credits work, and when they expire
Lovable credits expire on a schedule that depends on where they came from. Unused monthly plan credits do roll over while the subscription stays active, but they expire two months after they were issued. Annual plan credits expire one month after the annual period ends, top-ups last twelve months, and daily build grants expire the same day and never roll over. None of it is refundable or redeemable for cash.
Seven
steps.
You are in two of them. Think of a house move where somebody else packs, carries and unpacks, and you unlock the door at the end.
Step 01You send one linkThe address of your app, and last month's bill if you have it. That is the whole ask.
Step 02You get a fixed price backA written list of what your app actually uses and one number, within one business day. No call unless you want one.
Step 03A server opens in your nameYour account, your card, your machine. Nothing about it depends on me being here next year.
Step 04Everything moves acrossThe app, the database, the uploaded files, the settings. The old copy keeps running the entire time.
Step 05You click around a private linkThe only thing asked of you in the whole job. Tell me if anything looks off.
Step 06Your address switches overVisitors notice nothing at all. If anything looks wrong it goes straight back in minutes.
Step 07You get the keysEvery login, automatic backups, and a one page guide in plain English. Then you do not need me.
Send one link. Get a fixed price back.
No call, no form to fight with, no obligation. If moving is not worth it for your app, I will tell you that instead.
Credits look like money and behave like a coupon. They have a face value that changes with your plan, an expiry date that changes with their source, and no cash value at all. This page lays out every rule Lovable publishes about them in one place, because they are scattered across two documents and the interaction between them is where people lose credits they paid for.
Do Lovable credits expire?
Yes, all of them, on a schedule that depends on which kind they are. This is the published rule for plan credits:
If unused, monthly plan credits expire two (2) months after they're issued, and annual plan credits expire one (1) month after your annual period ends.
Lovable pricing page, source
Two months is longer than a lot of prepaid schemes give you, and it is worth saying that clearly. But note what it is measured from. The clock starts when the credits are issued, not when your subscription ends and not when you last logged in. A quiet January quietly costs you January's grant in March.
Do unused monthly credits roll over?
Yes, with a catch that undoes most of the benefit. Unused monthly plan credits do carry forward while your subscription stays active, so a light month is not immediately wasted. They do not carry forward indefinitely, because the two month expiry from the paragraph above still applies to each batch.
In practice that gives you a rolling window of roughly two months of grant rather than a bank. If you underuse for a quarter and then plan a big build, only the most recent months are still there waiting. It is a useful nuance and it is the one people most often get wrong in both directions, either assuming nothing rolls over or assuming everything does.
What about daily build credits on the free plan?
Those expire the same day and are explicitly excluded from rolling over:
Included grants of daily build credits expire at the end of each day and don't roll over.
Lovable pricing page, source
Lovable's documentation says the same thing about usage-specific grants generally:
Unused usage-specific grants do not roll over.
Lovable documentation, Credits and usage, source
The free tier is 5 build credits a day, capped at 30 in a month, plus 20 Cloud credits monthly and 4 AI credits. Because the daily grant resets rather than accumulates, the free plan rewards showing up daily and gives nothing to someone who saves up for a weekend.
How long do top-up credits last?
Twelve months, which is much more generous than the plan grant. If you buy a top-up you have a year to use it. The trade is that you paid more per credit for it: $0.30 on Pro against a plan rate of $0.25, and $0.60 on Business against $0.50.
| Credit type | Rolls over? | Expires | Practical effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly plan credits | Yes, while subscribed | 2 months after issue | A rolling two month window, not a bank |
| Annual plan credits | Yes, while subscribed | 1 month after the annual period ends | A short grace period, then gone |
| Top-up credits | Yes | 12 months | The longest life, at the highest price per credit |
| Daily build grants | No | End of the same day | Use it today or lose it |
Can I get a refund for unused Lovable credits?
No. The pricing page is unambiguous about this:
Credits aren't refundable or redeemable for cash or any other value.
Lovable pricing page, source
And there is a case in which whatever is left simply stops existing:
In such cases, any remaining credits are deleted, unless otherwise required by the law.
Lovable pricing page, source
I am not going to dress that up as sinister, because prepaid balances almost always work this way and the terms say so in advance. It does mean one thing though: a credit balance is not an asset. It is not something you can count in the value of your project, sell, transfer for cash, or get back. It is a right to ask this particular tool to do work, for a limited time.
Are credits shared across a team?
Yes. A workspace has one credit pool, members are unlimited, and the price is attached to credits rather than to seats. That is genuinely good design and it is cheaper than per-seat pricing for a small team where one or two people do most of the building.
The shape of the risk changes though. With seats, your bill is a function of headcount, which you control and which changes rarely. With a shared pool, your bill is a function of how enthusiastic your colleagues were this month. One person exploring an idea in a long session spends from the same balance that your production work depends on.
Is a credit a stable unit at all?
Not really, and Lovable says as much:
The value of a credit and the rate at which they are consumed for a given action depend on your subscription plan and the feature used, and credits are not necessarily equal in value across different plans.
Lovable pricing page, source
So a credit has a price that varies by plan, a consumption rate that varies by feature, an expiry that varies by source, and no cash value. Four moving parts in the unit you budget in. That is workable while a project is young and you are spending attention on it anyway. It gets tiring once the app is finished and you would rather think about it once a year.
That is the whole reason people move a finished app onto a server they rent directly. Not because Lovable is expensive in some absolute sense, but because a flat monthly figure has one moving part instead of four, and it never expires. A small machine of the kind that runs an app like this is roughly $4 to $20 a month, and I move apps onto them at a fixed price.
$24
a month.
The entire stack. Two subscriptions and a free security layer. No credits, no metering, and no number that climbs because your app got bigger.
- Claude ProIncludes Claude Code, so you can keep changing the app yourself$20/mo$17 a month on the annual plan
- A DigitalOcean DropletThe machine your app runs on, in your own account$4/moPublished starting price, sized to your app
- CloudflareThe security layer in front of it, on the free plan$0Free plan, no card needed
Questions people actually ask
Do Lovable credits expire?
Yes. Lovable states that unused monthly plan credits expire two months after they are issued, and annual plan credits expire one month after the annual period ends. Top-up credits last twelve months, and daily build grants expire at the end of the same day.
Do unused Lovable credits roll over to next month?
Unused monthly plan credits do roll over while the subscription stays active, but each batch still expires two months after it was issued. That produces a rolling window of about two months of grant rather than a balance that accumulates indefinitely.
Are Lovable credits refundable?
No. Lovable's pricing page states that credits are not refundable or redeemable for cash or any other value, and that in certain cases any remaining credits are deleted unless otherwise required by the law. A credit balance is not an asset you can recover.
Do daily free credits on Lovable roll over?
No. Lovable states that included grants of daily build credits expire at the end of each day and do not roll over, and its documentation adds that unused usage-specific grants do not roll over. The free plan gives 5 build credits a day, capped at 30 a month.
Do Lovable team members each need their own credits?
No. A Lovable workspace shares one credit pool, members are unlimited, and pricing is attached to credits rather than to seats. That is cheaper than per-seat pricing, but it also means one person's heavy month is drawn from the same balance everyone else depends on.
Would you rather have a bill that does not expire?
Send the link to your app. I will tell you what it costs to move it onto a server in your own name, and the flat monthly figure afterwards. Both in writing.
Send the link to your app. You get back a list of what it uses and a fixed price, within one business day. No call needed unless you want one.