Short answer: yes, you can build a small app with AI for free, but almost no free plan covers the whole job. Every major tool lets you make a first version at $0. The free part usually stops at one of five places: usage limits, hosting that sleeps or expires, a database, a custom domain, or Apple's yearly fee if you want the App Store.
We build VibeKit, one of the options below. Every price and limit here comes from each company's own pricing page or docs, as of November 2026. These pages change often, so open the link before you plan around a number.
What does each free plan actually include?
| Tool | What the free plan gives you | Where the free plan stops |
|---|---|---|
| Lovable | 5 build credits a day (up to 30 a month), plus monthly Cloud credits for hosting | Custom domains and removing the "Edit with Lovable" badge need Pro, from $25 a month |
| Bolt | 300K tokens a day and 1M a month, website hosting, Bolt branding on the site | Custom domains and no daily limit need Pro, $25 a month |
| Replit (Starter) | Daily Agent credits up to a monthly cap, Lite build, one published app | That app goes offline after 30 days; Core is $20 a month ($18 billed yearly) |
| v0 | 7 messages a day, deploy to Vercel, sync with GitHub | The Plus plan adds all models and monthly credits |
| Claude Free | Chat, artifacts, running code, with limits per 5 hours and per week | Claude Code needs Pro: $20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly |
| ChatGPT Free | Limited Codex access | Paid plans start with Go at $8 a month |
| Google AI Studio | Free tier includes AI Studio access; Build mode makes web and Android apps | Hosting on Cloud Run may cost money by usage; custom domains need a paid Google Cloud project |
| VibeKit Free | 10 AI sessions a month, 2 workspaces, hosting at name.vibekit.page | Apps sleep when idle; a database is $3 a month; custom domains start on Starter, $9.99 a month on the web |
"Free" here means $0 a month today, not forever: of these pages, only Bolt's uses that word ("Free forever, no card required"). And Claude and ChatGPT are chat assistants, not app hosts: they can write an app's code, but getting it online for other people is a separate step.
Can Claude build an app for free?
Partly. Claude's Free plan includes artifacts and running code, with usage limits that reset over a 5-hour window and weekly. An artifact is a small interactive tool or game that opens next to the chat. For a calculator, a quiz or a mockup just for you, that is a real way to build something at $0.
Two things are not on Free. Claude Code, Anthropic's coding agent for full projects, starts on Pro. And artifacts that save data between visits are listed for Pro and higher plans on Anthropic's artifacts help page. The full picture is in can Claude build an app.
ChatGPT is similar: OpenAI's plan page says Free includes Codex, its coding agent, to "explore Codex capabilities on quick coding tasks" (can ChatGPT build an app). For Google, note that the AI Studio pricing page lists "Content used to improve our products" on the free tier (can Gemini build an app).
What happens when the free credits run out mid-project?
This is the limit people hit first, because a real app takes many rounds of "now change this":
- Lovable: 5 build credits a day, up to 30 a month. Its docs say build credits stop for the rest of the month once you reach the cap.
- Bolt: 300K tokens a day and 1M a month, and free tokens don't roll over.
- v0: 7 messages a day.
- Replit: daily Agent credits up to a monthly cap. The Starter page does not give the amount.
- VibeKit: 10 AI sessions a month, on a rolling 30-day window. Past that, each session is $0.50 from credits (pricing).
Daily limits come back the next day and monthly ones the next month, or you pay to keep going. To stretch a free plan, send one concrete change per message: "move the sign-up button above the photos," not "make it better." Where the money goes once you pay is in how much it costs to build an app with AI.
Will my free app stay online?
Not always, and people often notice only after sharing the link.
- Replit: the one free published app "will automatically go down after 30 days."
- VibeKit: free apps sleep after 60 idle minutes and wake on the next visit. A free account gets 12 awake hours per UTC day, shared across its apps. Free apps do not expire. An app that stays awake around the clock starts on Starter ($9.99 a month on the web, 1 always-on app).
- Lovable: Free includes monthly Cloud credits "so you can host apps". Its pricing page says apps that reach significant traffic or size may start costing more than the included grant, paid from your credit balance.
- Bolt: the free plan includes website hosting for up to 333k web requests, with Bolt branding on the site.
- Google AI Studio: putting a Build mode app online uses Google Cloud Run, and the Build mode docs say "Pricing for Google Cloud Run may apply based on usage." The deployed app also uses your API key for every visitor's Gemini calls.
For the long term, see where to host AI apps.
Do I need to pay for a database?
If your app has to remember things (sign-ups, bookings, logins), it needs a database:
- VibeKit: a Postgres database is a $3 a month add-on on Free and is included in every paid plan.
- Bolt: the free plan lists "Unlimited databases"; Pro adds more database capacity.
- Lovable: Free gets a default database instance, and larger instance sizes are for paid plans (plans and credits).
- Replit: Starter gets monthly credits that cover databases, storage and publishing (Starter plan).
An app that only saves data on the visitor's own device, like a game remembering your last score, can often skip a database entirely.
What about my own domain name?
A free app lives at the tool's own address, such as name.vibekit.page. Every builder above that lists custom domains puts them on a paid plan: Pro on Lovable and Bolt, a paid Google Cloud project on AI Studio, and Starter on VibeKit. The domain name itself is a separate yearly purchase from a domain registrar.
Can I put a free AI-built app on the App Store?
Not for free. Apple's Developer Program costs $99 a year, and enrolling is what lets you distribute apps on the App Store. Apple's enrollment help says the fee is in local currency where available, that accredited educational institutions can get a fee waiver, and that you can install an app on your own device with Xcode without enrolling.
The free route is a mobile web app: a site built for phones that people open from a link and can add to their home screen. For many ideas that is enough. VibeKit can also build a native iPhone app and send it to the App Store from your phone, with no Mac; the Apple fee above still applies, because it publishes under your own Apple developer account. The steps are in publish an app to the App Store from your iPhone, and the wider question in can AI build an iPhone app. If Android is your target, Google AI Studio's Build mode lists native Android apps.
What does VibeKit's Free plan include, and when is another tool better?
VibeKit's Free plan needs no card: 10 AI sessions a month, 2 workspaces (each app is one), and hosting at name.vibekit.page with a "Built with VibeKit" badge. Each app gets its own coding agent that remembers the project.
For the AI itself there are three options. The Free model, a shared pool of free models, costs $0 per message within your 10 sessions and has a daily limit. Models like Claude or GPT are paid from credits. Or bring your own Anthropic or OpenAI key, billed by your provider at its own rates with zero VibeKit markup. A key is not free (you pay the provider), but nothing is added on top (which builders take your own key).
Another tool is the better pick in some cases. If the app is only for you, a Claude artifact may be all you need, with no hosting at all. If you want a native Android app, Google AI Studio is the one here that lists it. And if your free app must stay awake around the clock, VibeKit's Free plan is not it: apps nap when idle, and always-on starts on Starter.
Try it at $0
Start in VibeKit on the web, or open the iOS app. Create a new web app, choose the Free model in the model picker if you want the AI to cost nothing, and paste something like:
Build a mobile-friendly bill splitter: I enter the total, the tip percent and how many people, and it shows what each person pays. Remember my last tip percent on this device, and give me the live URL.
To check it worked, open the URL on your phone, split a bill, reload the page, and confirm your tip percent is still filled in.