Base44 pricing has five plans: Free at $0, then Starter at $16 a month, Builder at $40, Pro at $80 and Elite at $160, all billed yearly. Base44 says paying yearly saves 20%, which puts month-to-month billing at roughly $20, $50, $100 and $200. Every plan comes with two monthly allowances, message credits for talking to the AI and integration credits for what your live app does, and the paid plans differ mostly in how many of each you get plus three additions: a custom domain on Starter, GitHub and model choice on Builder, and premium support on Elite.
Prices and limits below are from base44.com/pricing and docs.base44.com, checked Oct 2026. Base44 has changed its plans before, so look again before you pay. This page goes plan by plan, because the useful question is rarely "how much is Base44" and usually "which plan do I actually need".
Two meters, not one
Before the plans, the part that confuses most people. Base44 measures two things.
Message credits are spent when you ask the AI to build or change your app. Base44's pricing page says usage varies by action and by the AI model you select, so renaming a button and adding a reporting dashboard do not cost the same. Plan for big features to cost several messages, not one.
Integration credits are spent by your app while it runs, when it uses Base44's built-in services such as sending email, calling an AI model or handling an uploaded file. This meter keeps ticking on days you never open the editor. A quiet internal tool barely touches it. A customer-facing app that emails every new sign-up will.
Free, for finding out whether Base44 suits you
Free costs nothing and includes 25 message credits and 100 integration credits a month, up to 5 apps, and the same core backend as the paid plans: database, sign-in and user management, and an analytics view. That is generous for a trial. You can build a small tracker, add a login and see your data in the Data view without a card.
What Free does not give you: a custom domain, and the ability to edit code inside Base44. Twenty-five messages also run out fast once you move past the first draft and start fixing details. Treat Free as a two-evening test. If you are still adjusting things by the end of the first week, you have outgrown it.
Starter at $16, for one small app on your own domain
Starter is $16 a month billed yearly (about $20 month to month). It raises you to 100 message credits and 2,000 integration credits, removes the app limit, lets you edit code in the app, and connects a custom domain, with a domain included for the first year on every paid plan.
Starter fits one internal tool or one simple customer app that you tweak a few times a week. Think of a booking list for a studio, an inventory sheet with photos, or a client tracker for a small agency. A first build plus a round of polish can take a good share of 100 messages in month one, then ongoing edits use far fewer.
Step up when you notice two things: you are rationing messages in the middle of the month, or someone technical asks where the code lives. Starter has no GitHub connection.
Builder at $40, for anything you might hand to a developer
Builder is $40 a month billed yearly (about $50 month to month), with 250 message credits and 10,000 integration credits. It adds AI model choice and GitHub integration. Base44's docs say two-way GitHub sync requires Builder or higher: changes in Base44 push to your repository automatically, and changes merged into the main branch come back.
This is the plan we would point most serious users to, because it is the cheapest one that puts your code somewhere outside Base44. One caution: the code in that repository still expects Base44's backend. Local development runs a local Base44 backend, and the eject command creates a new backend on Base44 rather than a standalone server. GitHub sync makes the code visible and editable. It does not make the app portable.
Builder also suits small agencies running two or three client apps, as long as each one is light on email and AI calls.
Pro at $80, for heavy building
Pro is $80 a month billed yearly (about $100 month to month), with 500 message credits, 20,000 integration credits and early access to beta features. Nothing structural changes from Builder. You are paying for double the allowance.
Pick Pro if you build most days, run several apps, or have a live app whose email or AI features push past Builder's 10,000 integration credits. If you only hit Builder's ceiling once a quarter, stay on Builder and accept the slower month.
Elite at $160, for teams and single sign-on
Elite is $160 a month billed yearly (about $200 month to month), with 1,200 message credits, 50,000 integration credits and premium support. One feature lives here that the pricing table does not shout about: Base44's SSO docs list single sign-on for your app's users, with Google Workspace, Microsoft, GitHub, Okta or any OIDC provider, as an Elite plan feature or higher. If your staff must sign in to the tool with company accounts, Elite is the minimum, whatever your message count.
The costs that do not appear on the plan cards
- Billing period. The headline prices are yearly, paid up front. Month to month is about 25% more than the yearly monthly figure.
- Your live app's meter. Integration credits are spent by users, not by you. Estimate how many emails or AI calls a month your app makes before picking a plan.
- Leaving. Data exports per table as CSV, and code syncs to GitHub, but the backend stays on Base44. Moving later means rebuilding it, which costs time even if it never shows on an invoice.
- Domain renewal. The included domain covers year one. After that you pay normal renewal.
- Outside services. Any accounts your app calls directly, such as a payment provider, bill you separately.
Base44 next to Lovable and VibeDream on price
Checked Oct 2026. Base44 Starter at $16 a month billed yearly is cheaper than Lovable Pro, which starts at $25 a month (or $21 a month billed yearly) for 100 credits and puts building, hosting and its Lovable Cloud backend on one credit balance. Lovable also has a Free plan with 5 build credits a day, up to 30 a month. Our Lovable pricing guide covers its tiers.
VibeDream, which we make, costs more to start and has no free plan: All Access Mini is $49 a month for 60 credits and 3 active projects, and All Access is $97 a month for 150 credits and 5 active projects. Putting an app online costs 5 credits per publish, with hosting included. In exchange, the app is ordinary React and FastAPI code that you can download as a ZIP or sync to GitHub and run without VibeDream. If running the code yourself one day matters, that difference is worth more than the monthly gap. Full details are on VibeDream pricing.
A quick way to choose
- You have not used Base44 before: Free, for a week.
- One small app, your own domain, no developer involved: Starter.
- Code in GitHub, a developer now or later, or two or three light client apps: Builder.
- You build daily or a live app sends lots of email or AI requests: Pro.
- Staff must sign in with company accounts: Elite.
If you already suspect you will want to host the app yourself, compare tools before building much on Base44. Our Base44 alternatives guide sorts them by how much of the code you keep, and the Base44 review covers who the product suits best.