The short answer: a small app built in a handful of prompts fits inside the Pro plan’s 100 monthly credits ($25 a month, or $21 a month billed annually). Cost only rises when your fix-and-retry loops push you past those credits, and then the cheapest way to buy more is a bigger plan tier, not a top-up. On the rate that sources disagree about: Lovable’s own credits page gives top-ups as $15 per 50 credits on Pro, which is $0.30 a credit, and $30 per 50 on Business, which is $0.60. We found no $0.20 rate in the current docs.
Settling the top-up rate
One third-party price page in our research gave a top-up of $0.20 a credit; another gave $0.30 on Pro and $0.60 on Business. Lovable’s credits and usage docs, read 2 October 2026, state the second: “$15 per 50 credits ($0.30 per credit)” on Pro and “$30 per 50 credits ($0.60 per credit)” on Business, valid for 12 months from purchase. The pricing page itself shows the plan cards only once scripts load, so the docs are the readable primary source. The $0.20 figure is either older or from a different offer; if you see it in the checkout, trust the checkout.
The price of a credit, by route
| Route | Price | Credits | Cost per credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pro, monthly billing | $25 | 100 | $0.25 |
| Pro, billed annually | $21 a month | 100 | $0.21 |
| Pro, next tier up | $50 | 200 | $0.25 |
| Pro top-up | $15 | 50 | $0.30 |
| Business, monthly | $50 | 100 | $0.50 |
| Business, billed annually | $42 a month | 100 | $0.42 |
| Business top-up | $30 | 50 | $0.60 |
Plan and tier prices from Lovable’s subscription docs and our pricing index; the per-credit column is division. Every plan also includes 5 daily build credits that expire at the end of the day, so they help only if you build most days; they are left out of the sums below.
The formula
Monthly cost = plan price + (credits you need, minus credits in the plan) x top-up rate, if positive.
Credits you need = prompts x average credits per prompt x fix-loop factor. The credit costs per prompt are Lovable’s own illustrative examples: 0.50 to change a button’s colour, 0.90 to remove a footer, 1.20 to add authentication, 2.00 for a landing page with images. The loop factor is yours to set: 1.0 means no rework; 2.0 means half your credits go on repeating work. See Lovable stuck in a loop for what drives it.
Three worked examples
These use the docs’ example costs as stand-ins. They are illustrations of the arithmetic, not measured build costs.
| Example | Credits needed | Pro plan (100 credits) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Landing page and sign-up: 1 landing page (2.00), authentication (1.20), 10 small edits (10 x 0.50 = 5.00). Subtotal 8.20; loop factor 1.5 = 12.3 | about 12 | Inside the plan | $25 |
| Small SaaS first month: 40 messages averaging 1.20 = 48.0; loop factor 1.5 = 72.0 | 72 | Inside the plan | $25 |
| Heavy month: the same 48.0 with a loop factor of 3.0 = 144.0 | 144 | 44 over | $25 + 44 x $0.30 = $38.20 (with top-ups bought in 50-credit packs: one pack at $15, so $40) |
The last row is where the choice appears. Moving to the 200-credit Pro tier costs $50 for 200 credits; staying on the 100 tier and buying one 50-credit pack costs $40 for 150, and two packs $55 for 200. So once you need more than 150 credits in a month, the larger tier at $50 beats two packs at $55 ($0.25 against $0.30 a credit), while a one-off overrun of up to 50 is cheaper as a single pack. Packs last 12 months from purchase; unused plan credits roll over while the subscription stays active but expire two months after issue on monthly plans, so a pack is the longer-lived store for credits you may not use.
What is not in the credit sum
- Cloud and AI usage. Lovable’s credit balance also pays for hosting and the built-in backend (Cloud) and AI features in the deployed app. Every plan includes a monthly Cloud grant of 20 credits and an AI grant of 4, which Lovable describes as a temporary offering subject to change. Heavy traffic or AI calls draw on credits after the grants run out.
- A custom domain, which costs whatever your registrar charges; see custom domain for an AI-built app.
- Third-party services such as payments or email. See Stripe billing in a vibe-coded SaaS and the wider how to build a SaaS with AI.
Use your own numbers
Take your last month’s credits used from Workspace settings, Plans and credit usage, divide by the messages you sent to get your own average per prompt, and plug it into the formula above. The cost per build calculator on the pricing page does the division for any plan.
Method note
Researched from Lovable’s documentation and our dated pricing index; checked 2 October 2026. The credit examples are Lovable’s illustrations, not benchmarks. The loop factors and the worked examples are our assumptions to show the arithmetic.