# What Lovable actually costs

> Lovable bills in credits rather than in features. A credit costs $0.25 on Pro and $0.50 on Business, and Lovable's own published examples put a small edit at 0.50 credits and a landing page at 1.70. Top-up credits cost more per credit than plan credits. Hosting is included up to a grant, after which traffic and size can draw on the same credit balance.

Source: https://neurobird.com/lovable-migration/lovable-pricing-explained/ | Neurobird | Updated 2026-08-28

Lovable is a good build-by-chat tool and the pricing is not hidden. It is just expressed in a unit that does not convert to money in your head. This page converts it, using only numbers Lovable publishes, so you can work out roughly where a month lands before it happens rather than after.

## How does Lovable pricing work?

      Everything on Lovable is paid for in credits, and the plan you are on sets what a
      credit costs. On Pro a credit is priced at $0.25. On Business it is priced at $0.50. You
      are not buying seats or features, you are buying a balance and then spending it on
      actions.
      That single design decision explains most of the confusion people have with the bill.
      A seat price is a number you can put in a spreadsheet for the year. A balance is a number
      that depends entirely on how much you do, and neither you nor Lovable knows that figure in
      advance.
      
**Lovable prices credits at $0.25 each on the Pro plan and $0.50 each on the Business plan. Lovable pricing page**

      
## What does one Lovable edit actually cost?

      Lovable publishes worked examples, which is more than most tools in this category do.
      Four of them, with the money converted at each plan's own credit price:
      | What you asked for | Credits | Cost on Pro | Cost on Business || Make the button gray | 0.50 | $0.13 | $0.25 || Remove the footer | 0.90 | $0.23 | $0.45 || Add authentication with sign up and login | 1.20 | $0.30 | $0.60 || Build me a landing page, use images | 1.70 | $0.43 | $0.85 |
      The credit figures are Lovable's. The dollar columns are just arithmetic on the
      published credit price. Look at the first row for a moment: making a button gray and
      building an entire landing page differ by a factor of about three. A trivial fix and a
      whole page are close to the same order of magnitude, which is worth knowing before you
      spend an afternoon on small polish.

      
## Is a credit always worth the same?

      No, and Lovable says so directly. The same action can consume a different amount for
      two different people:
      
> 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

      That sentence does two jobs. It tells you the rate depends on the plan, and it tells
      you the rate also depends on the feature used. So a credit is not a currency. It is a
      token whose exchange rate moves with context, which is fine while you are experimenting
      and awkward the moment you try to forecast a year.

      
## Do top-up credits cost the same as plan credits?

      No. Top-ups are the more expensive way to buy. On Pro, a top-up is $15 for 50 credits,
      which works out at $0.30 a credit against the plan rate of $0.25. On Business, a top-up is
      $30 for 50 credits, or $0.60 a credit against the plan rate of $0.50.
      | Plan | Plan credit price | Top-up price | Top-up per credit | Difference || Pro | $0.25 | $15 per 50 credits | $0.30 | 20 percent more || Business | $0.50 | $30 per 50 credits | $0.60 | 20 percent more |
      Twenty percent is not scandalous, and every prepaid product prices the emergency refill
      above the planned one. It matters because top-ups are bought at exactly the wrong moment,
      halfway through something, with a deadline, which is precisely when nobody checks a rate.

      
## What can you actually do on the free plan?

      Enough to see whether the tool suits you, and not much more. The free tier gives 5
      build credits a day, capped at 30 in a month, plus 20 Cloud credits a month and 4 AI
      credits. At the published 0.50 credits for making a button gray, five daily build credits
      is about ten small edits in a day.
      The daily grant does not accumulate while you are away:
      
> Included grants of daily build credits expire at the end of each day and don't roll over.
> Lovable pricing page, source

      So the free plan is a genuine trial rather than a slow lane. Ten small edits a day is
      a real evaluation, and the monthly cap of 30 means a fortnight of ignoring it does not
      bank you a free build weekend.

      
## Does hosting a finished app cost credits too?

      It can, and this is the line that matters most if the app succeeds. Lovable hosts what
      you build and includes a grant, but the grant has an edge to it:
      
> Apps that reach significant visitor traffic and/or size may start incurring cost on top of the included grant, which is covered by your credit balance.
> Lovable pricing page, source

      Read it as written: visitors and size can start drawing on your credit balance. The
      same pool of credits pays for building the app and for people using it. That is an unusual
      arrangement, and it means popularity and development compete for the same budget.

      
## So what will a month actually cost?

      Three parts, only one of which is knowable in advance. The plan fee, the credits you
      spend building, and whatever your traffic draws once the app is out in the world. In a
      quiet month the second and third are nearly nothing. In a launch month they are the whole
      bill.
      None of that is an argument against Lovable while you are building. Paying by the
      action is honest, and for the messy phase where you try things and throw them away it is
      often cheaper than a fixed subscription would be. The argument starts later, at the point
      where the app is finished and being used, because that is when you are paying a variable
      price shaped like activity for something that has become fixed and boring.
      A finished app needs a machine, a database, a domain and working backups. Those have a
      flat price. DigitalOcean lists Droplets from $4.00 a month and Amazon Lightsail from $5,
      and the number does not move when your app gets popular. Moving one there is what I do,
      for a fixed $500 for a straightforward app, or from $1,000 where there are more moving
      parts, after which the running cost is roughly $4 to $20 a month paid to the provider
      rather than to me.

## Questions

### How much does a Lovable credit cost?

A Lovable credit is priced at $0.25 on the Pro plan and $0.50 on the Business plan. Top-up credits cost more: $15 for 50 credits on Pro, which is $0.30 each, and $30 for 50 on Business, which is $0.60 each.

### How many credits does a Lovable edit use?

Lovable publishes examples. Making a button gray is 0.50 credits, removing a footer is 0.90, adding authentication with sign up and login is 1.20, and building a landing page with images is 1.70. At the Pro rate of $0.25 a credit those cost between $0.13 and $0.43.

### Is the Lovable free plan enough to build something real?

The free plan gives 5 build credits a day, capped at 30 a month, plus 20 Cloud credits monthly and 4 AI credits. Since a small edit is around 0.50 credits, that is roughly ten small edits a day, which is enough to evaluate Lovable but not to run a project on.

### Does Lovable charge for hosting the app?

Hosting is included up to a grant, but Lovable states that apps reaching significant visitor traffic or size may start incurring cost on top of the included grant, covered by the credit balance. So building the app and people using it draw on the same pool.

### Why do two people pay different amounts for the same Lovable action?

Because the rate is not universal. Lovable states that the value of a credit and the rate at which credits are consumed depend on the subscription plan and the feature used, and that credits are not necessarily equal in value across different plans.

## Get a fixed price

Send the link to your app at https://neurobird.com/lovable-migration/#start . You get a list of what it uses and a fixed migration price back within one business day.