Home › Rules › Base44 vs Bolt

Base44 vs Bolt: which AI app builder should a beginner use?

Prices, limits and features from Base44's and Bolt's own pricing pages and help docs, checked Oct 29, 2026. Sources below.

• Comparison
• Base44
• Bolt
• Beginners
• Pricing

Short answer: both turn a plain-English description into a working app, both host it for you, and both have a $0 plan. Base44 is the one to pick if you never want to see code. Logins, the database and hosting are already part of every app, and it fits practical tools like booking apps, client portals and dashboards. Bolt writes a real JavaScript project you can open, edit and download, and it's the better pick for a true iPhone and Android app (it builds those with Expo). The big difference you'll feel day to day is how each one charges: Base44 counts message credits, Bolt counts tokens, and Bolt's tokens go faster as your project grows. Cheapest paid plans today: Base44 Starter is $16 a month billed yearly, Bolt Pro is $25 a month billed monthly.

Side-by-side with current prices

Prices are per month in US dollars, before tax, from each company's own pricing page. A Base44 message credit and a Bolt token are very different units, so don't compare the numbers directly. See credits vs tokens.

Pick this if...

Pick Base44 if

• You want the least setup. Logins, the database, hosting and analytics are part of every app, even on the free plan. Base44's login pages come ready-made, with email sign-up and buttons for Google and other providers.
• You're building a tool for a small business: a booking or order tracker, a client portal, an inventory list, an internal dashboard.
• You want a rough idea of what each message costs. Base44's docs give estimates for each kind of request (see below), from a small text change to a change across the whole app.
• You like a low yearly price. Starter is $16 a month billed yearly, gives you unlimited apps and your own domain, and lets you remove the Base44 badge from your app.
• You'd rather fix small things by clicking. Base44's docs say manual visual edits (dragging elements, changing layouts, typing text in the editor) don't use credits.

Pick Bolt if

• You want a real phone app. Bolt builds iPhone and Android apps with Expo and walks you through testing on your own phone with the Expo Go app and publishing to the App Store and Google Play. Base44's store version runs your web app inside a web view.
• You want to see and own the code. Every Bolt project is a normal code project. You can open files in Code view (on a computer), download it as a ZIP (Bolt's docs don't tie this to a paid plan), or sync it to GitHub.
• You want more room on the free plan to try things. Bolt's free plan has 1 million tokens a month, Base44's has 25 message credits.
• You might switch tools later. Bolt can import a GitHub repo or a Lovable project, and a downloaded project runs on your own computer with Node.js.
• You want to plan before building. Bolt's Plan Mode lets you talk an idea through before it writes any code.

Still not sure? Both have $0 plans. Build the same tiny app in each (a sign-up form that saves to a list is plenty) and keep the one that confused you less. Comparing other pairs? See Base44 vs Lovable, Base44 vs Replit, and Lovable vs Bolt vs Replit.

Credits vs tokens, in plain words

This is where most beginners get surprised, so it's worth two minutes.

Base44: message credits

• Two kinds of credits. Message credits are used when you chat with Base44's AI to build or fix the app. Integration credits are used when your finished app does things like send an email or generate an image (about 1 credit each, per Base44's docs).
• Rough cost per message. Base44's docs estimate about 0.5 credits for a small text or style change, about 1 for a small feature, about 2 for a bigger module, and about 3 to 4 for a change across the whole app. They say these are estimates, not a quote.
• Free plan resets daily and monthly. You can use up to 5 message credits a day, up to 25 a month, and only your personal workspace gets them. Hit the daily limit and building pauses until the next day.
• Paid plans reset monthly on the day you subscribed. Unused credits expire when they reset.

Bolt: tokens

• What a token is. A small piece of text. Bolt uses tokens whenever it reads, thinks about, or writes your project.
• Bigger project, bigger bill per message. Bolt's own pricing page says most token use comes from syncing your project's files to the AI, so "the larger the project, the more tokens used per message." A one-line fix late in a big project can cost far more than the same fix on day one.
• Free plan: 1 million tokens a month and 300K a day. The daily amount doesn't carry over, monthly tokens reset on the 1st, and nothing rolls over. When you hit the daily limit you can still edit the code yourself in Code view, which uses no tokens.
• Pro: 10 million tokens a month to start, no daily cap, and unused tokens roll over for up to two months while you keep paying. Paid plans also get the Max agent; the free plan gets the Standard agent only.
• Yearly billing: the pricing page doesn't list a yearly price, only "save up to 28%." Bolt's billing help uses $216 a year for the Pro 10M annual plan in one of its worked examples. Check the pricing page before you buy, because that's an example, not a price list.

Neither company gives a simple "X apps for $Y" number. Base44 shows the credits each message used in the AI chat. Bolt shows your balance under your profile icon → My Subscription, and you can turn on a token counter above the chatbox in Settings.

To make Bolt tokens last, keep prompts to one change at a time and clear the chat context when a feature is done. Our Bolt prompts guide has the details and ready-to-copy prompts.

Publishing and hosting

• Base44: each app gets a free built-in address (yourapp.base44.app) you can rename, with no DNS setup. Click Publish to put your latest changes live. You can connect your own domain from Starter up, and yearly plans from Starter up include a free domain for a year. The free plan allows up to 5 apps, and each new app's database can hold up to 200 MB (Starter goes to 2 GB).
• Bolt: every project publishes to a free .bolt.host address. On the free plan, sites are always public, show a "Made in Bolt" badge, and share 10 GB of bandwidth and 333,333 requests a month across your account. Bolt says that's usually around 10,000 to 15,000 visits a month. Go over it and your site goes offline for the rest of the month, with no way to buy more on Free. Paid plans get 30 GB and 1 million requests, can pay as you go past that (up to a cap you set), and can use a custom domain and private sites.

One more Bolt detail: in a project you haven't published, Bolt may pause the database after six days of low use. It restores itself the next time you open the project, which takes a few minutes.

So for a small free app that a handful of people use, both work. For a public site that might get real traffic, plan on paying for either one.

How to give each tool your project rules

Both tools let you write your rules down once, so you don't have to type "don't touch the other pages" in every message.

Base44: Custom Instructions

In the app editor's AI chat, click More options (bottom right of the chat), then Custom Instructions. Type your instructions one per line and click Save changes. Base44's docs say they apply to every prompt for that app, on the main version only (not on a branch). A short starter:

This app is [one sentence: what it is and who it's for].
Change only what I ask for in each message. Leave other pages alone.
For anything bigger than a small change, explain the plan first and wait for my OK.
Users can only see and change their own data unless I say otherwise.
Secret API keys never go in front-end code.
When you finish, tell me what changed and how to check it.

The full version, with an AGENTS.md for when you sync to GitHub, is our Base44 Custom Instructions template.

Bolt: Project Knowledge

Inside a project, click the gear icon at the top center, then All project settings, then Knowledge. Bolt's docs describe it as background instructions the agent uses on every prompt: goals, style, terms and limits. There's also Account Knowledge (all your projects) and Team Knowledge. For checklists you only need sometimes, Bolt has Skills, available on every plan. A short project starter:

# About this project
- A small web app for [who it's for] that lets them [the main thing it does].
- Version 1 only needs to: [the ONE thing it must do].

# How to work
- Make one small change per prompt, then tell me how to test it.
- Don't touch files that aren't part of the change I asked for.
- Don't add new packages without asking me first.
- Keep API keys in Secrets, never in front-end code.
- Every table that holds user data needs row-level security, so users only see their own rows.
- Keep the current design: same colors, fonts and layout.

The full version is our Bolt Project Knowledge template, or build your own in the free rules generator.

Moving on later

Plenty of people start in a builder and later want to keep going in a coding tool like Cursor or Claude Code. Here's how each one handles that, from their own docs:

• Bolt: click the project title, then Download to get a ZIP. Unzip it, then run npm install && npm run dev (you need Node.js installed). Or connect GitHub from the GitHub icon at the top right. Bolt creates a private repo and keeps it in sync, and you can work in GitHub and come back to Bolt. Because the code lives in GitHub, you can host it on Bolt, Netlify or somewhere else.
• Base44: on Builder or higher, choose Export project as ZIP, or turn on two-way GitHub sync. Base44's pricing FAQ says "Nothing is locked to the platform," but its developer docs are more specific: the exported code uses the Base44 SDK for your data, logins, backend functions and integrations, so a ZIP is "a copy of your code, not a way to move your app off Base44." Your data doesn't come with the ZIP either; you export each table as a CSV.

If you already know you'll want to leave the builder one day, that's a real point for Bolt. If you plan to stay, it matters a lot less. Not sure which coding tool comes next? See Cursor vs Claude Code vs Codex for beginners.

Related

• Base44 Custom Instructions template
• Bolt Project Knowledge template (+ AGENTS.md)
• Bolt prompts that save tokens
• Base44 vs Lovable for beginners
• Base44 vs Replit for beginners (real prices)
• Lovable vs Bolt vs Replit for beginners (real prices)
• Bolt mobile app rules (Expo)
• Cursor vs Claude Code vs Codex for beginners

Sources

• Base44: Pricing
• Base44 docs: Billing and plans
• Base44 docs: Credits
• Base44 docs: Using the AI chat (Custom Instructions)
• Base44 docs: Building an app (publishing)
• Base44 docs: Connecting a domain to your app
• Base44 docs: Managing login and registration
• Base44 docs: Managing your app data (database limits)
• Base44 docs: Creating and using your app on mobile
• Base44 docs: Developer tools (exporting your code)
• Base44 docs: GitHub integration
• Bolt: Pricing
• Bolt help: Billing (Free plan, annual plans)
• Bolt help: Tokens
• Bolt help: Choose an agent
• Bolt help: Bolt Cloud hosting plans
• Bolt help: Publish your project
• Bolt help: Bolt Database
• Bolt help: Database authentication
• Bolt help: Expo for mobile apps
• Bolt help: Project settings (Knowledge)
• Bolt help: Skills
• Bolt help: Plan Mode
• Bolt help: Manage your projects (Download)
• Bolt help: GitHub for version control
• Bolt help: Corporate and commercial (code ownership)

All prices and plan details checked Oct 29, 2026 on Base44's and Bolt's own pricing and help pages. Prices are in US dollars, before tax, and change often. If something here no longer matches, tell us at [email protected].