Base44 pricing: is it free, what each plan costs, how credits work

The short answer

Yes, Base44 has a free plan: 25 message credits per month plus 100 integration credits. The first paid plan, Starter, costs $20 per month, or $16 per month billed annually, for 100 message credits and 2,000 integration credits. The headline number on each plan is its message credits; integration credits are a second counter, and often the one that matters more once the app is live.

This page reads Base44’s pricing page and documentation, as recorded on the date shown. It does not draw on any use of the tool.

How to read the price list

Each plan sells three things: message credits, integration credits, and features.

Message credits. From Starter to Pro, price tracks the allowance exactly: Builder costs 2.5 times Starter for 2.5 times the message credits, and Pro costs 5 times Starter for 5 times as many. A message credit costs the same on all three plans. It only gets cheaper on Elite, by about 17% (12 times Starter’s allowance for 10 times its price). In other words, moving up a plan does not lower your cost per credit until Elite.

Integration credits. This is where the plans differ. Builder costs 2.5 times Starter but gives 5 times the integration credits (10,000 versus 2,000). Pro gives 20,000, Elite 50,000.

Features. A custom domain and hiding the “Edit with Base44” label start at Starter. AI model selection, GitHub integration, and code export start at Builder. Pro adds early access to beta features, Elite adds premium support.

Monthly or annual billing

Annual billing takes 20% off every paid plan: Builder goes from $50 to $40 per month. It also adds a free domain for one year, which you must claim within 60 days, and from Builder up, 25 credits to give to a friend.

According to the documentation, an upgrade takes effect right away; a downgrade or cancellation takes effect at the end of the period. Plans are non-refundable. When you cancel, the workspace drops to the free plan and only 5 apps stay published. The currency depends on your location (dollars for most users).

If you do not know your usage yet, monthly billing keeps you from committing a year to a non-refundable plan.

What the free plan allows

• 25 message credits per month, but no more than 5 per day: it takes at least five days to use the month’s allowance.
• 100 integration credits per month.
• 5 apps, with authentication, a database, and analytics. The database is limited to 200 MB and 100 KB per record for apps created since October 18, 2026.
• No custom domain, no private apps, no code export, and the “Edit with Base44” label stays on.
• Only the personal workspace receives message credits, and automatic fixes made by the AI use them up.

Three scenarios, counted in credits

The unit costs are the estimates the vendor publishes (Base44 documentation, “Credits” (accessed November 11, 2026)). The scenarios are assumptions, not measurements.

1. Building a small internal tool. Two app-wide changes (6 to 8 credits), six complex modules (12), ten small feature improvements (10), and ten simple visual changes (5): 33 to 35 message credits. The free plan cannot cover that in one month; Starter leaves about two thirds for later tweaks.

2. Running an app that sends emails. One confirmation email (1 integration credit) and one AI call in automatic mode (1 credit) per order, so 2 credits. The free plan covers 50 orders a month, Starter 1,000, Builder 5,000, Pro 10,000.

3. The same app with a different AI model. The call then costs at least 3 credits, so 4 credits per order with the email: Starter now covers only 500 orders a month, Builder 2,500. Here the model choice cuts capacity in half.

Past the allowance

The documentation describes no way to buy extra credits: the only option given is to change plans.

• Out of message credits: no more messages to the AI until the reset, which is daily on the free plan as long as monthly allowance remains, and monthly on the subscription date on a paid plan.
• Out of integration credits: the actions that need them (email, image, file upload, AI call) fail with a generic error for the end user, and you get an email. This is the case to watch, because your customers are the ones who see it.

Unused credits expire at the reset. The one exception: moving from a monthly plan to a higher monthly plan carries the remainder over for one cycle, up to one month of credits.

What uses credits when you do not expect it

• Talking with the AI: “Discuss” mode uses about 0.3 message credits per message, even when nothing in the app changes.
• Video: 5 integration credits per second. Ten seconds use half the free monthly allowance.
• Internal automations: about 1 integration credit for 10 workflow steps or 100 backend function calls.
• External services: called with your own API key, they use no Base44 credits, but their provider bills you directly.

On the other side, these use nothing: visual edits you make by hand, and database reads and writes.

What the price list does not say

The vendor’s pages contradict each other on the Elite plan. The pricing page shows a fixed 1,200 message credits and 50,000 integration credits. The documentation describes an Elite plan with a choice of 1,200 to 8,200 message credits and 50,000 to 300,000 integration credits, plus a Business plan that is missing from the pricing page (Base44 documentation, “Billing and plans” (accessed November 11, 2026)). Prices for those tiers were not recorded. Yet Business and Enterprise are the plans where the documentation places data storage outside the United States.

Comparing with other tools

The site’s cost simulator compares automation tools, whose units come down to a number of runs; it does not cover Base44. To put these prices in context, see the Base44 profile, the head-to-heads Base44 vs Lovable and Base44 vs Replit, and the comparison of AI app builders.