Base44 vs Bolt
A guide by Builddu, which makes one of the builders covered. We are not affiliated with Base44 or Bolt. Checked against their own documentation on 23 October 2026.
The short answer
Base44 and Bolt both turn a prompt into a working app, and their entry plans cost within $5 of each other — Starter at $20 a month, Pro at $25. The difference that matters is what you end up holding: Base44 runs and hosts the app for you and bills two kinds of credit, while Bolt bills raw tokens and gives you a codebase you can take to GitHub and, through Expo, to the app stores.
At a glance
| Base44 | Bolt | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry paid plan | Starter, $20 a month month-to-month or $16 billed annually. | Pro, $25 a month month-to-month or $18 billed annually, which their card totals as $216 a year. |
| Free plan | 25 message credits and 100 integration credits a month, up to 5 message credits a day, up to 5 apps. | 1M tokens a month with a 300,000-token daily cap. |
| What it bills | Two balances: message credits for building, integration credits for what the live app does. | One balance of tokens, which their docs say mostly goes on reading and syncing your project files. |
| Backend and database | An integrated backend and database on every plan, with authentication and analytics. | Bolt Cloud, described as “enterprise-grade backend infrastructure including hosting, databases, integrations and more”, with unlimited databases on Free and Pro. |
| Authentication | Listed among the core features included on every plan. | “User Management & Authentication” is listed as part of Bolt Cloud. |
| Hosting | Apps run on production infrastructure rather than a sandbox. | Website hosting is included on the Free and Pro plans. |
| Who owns the code | “You own everything you build on Base44: your code, your data, your users.” | “All code that you create with Bolt and StackBlitz is your own code, which you can use for any legal purpose including commercial purposes.” |
| Getting the code out | Two-way GitHub sync “exports the full source code to your own repo at any time”; GitHub integration is listed from the Builder plan. | A GitHub repo can be connected on any plan, giving “a full history of changes that lives outside Bolt”. Their terms also allow 30 days to export after a termination or suspension. |
| Custom domains | From Starter up. A free domain for the first year is listed on Starter, Builder, Pro and Elite, on yearly billing only. | Listed under the Pro plan. |
| Mobile apps | A native wrapper around the published web app, submitted to both stores; the submission files need the Builder plan or higher. | React Native through Expo, published to the App Store and Play Store; the build and submission happen outside Bolt. |
| Buying more mid-cycle | Not possible — “Credit top-ups are no longer available.” | Token reloads, on the highest monthly Pro plan or any annual Pro plan. |
| Top of the ladder | Only Elite's smallest rung carries a price, at $200 a month or $160 billed annually. Above and beyond it:
| Pro is listed as “Starts at 10M” tokens with no priced rung above it. Enterprise is “Custom annual contract, billed by consumption”. |
What each one builds
Base44
Base44's own list is apps, websites, games, tools and AI agents, with the backend, authentication, payments and hosting already attached. Its pitch is that you do not touch a server, a payment provider or a database.
Bolt
Bolt's help centre lists “websites and apps, including marketing sites, portfolios, online stores, dashboards, and internal tools”, plus presentations through Bolt Slides. Its homepage offers Figma, GitHub or a team template as starting points.
The free plans
Both have a free plan that renews every month, and both put a daily cap on it.
- Base44: 25 message credits a month, no more than 5 a day, plus 100 integration credits and up to 5 apps. One condition is easy to miss — only the personal workspace created for you at sign-up gets free message credits; any other free workspace gets integration credits only.
- Bolt: 1M tokens a month, capped at 300,000 a day, and the daily allowance does not accumulate — “if you don't use all 300K today, tomorrow you still start at 300K, not 600K.”
- At Bolt's daily limit you can still edit existing code by hand in Code view, which uses no tokens.
- Base44's free-plan apps are public: “On the Free plan, you can only build public apps.” Bolt lists public and private projects on its free card.
Paid pricing
The entry prices are close. The ladders above them are not comparable, because one sells credits and the other sells tokens.
- Base44 publishes four paid plans: Starter $20, Builder $50, Pro $100 and Elite from $200 a month month-to-month, or $16, $40, $80 and $160 billed annually — a 20% saving they describe as the monthly price times twelve, charged once a year.
- Bolt publishes Pro at $25 a month or $18 billed annually, and Teams at $30 per member or $27 billed annually. Enterprise is “Custom annual contract, billed by consumption”, with “Unlimited tokens, priced by consumption”.
- Both hide the top of the ladder. Base44's pricing page prices only Elite's smallest rung, though its billing doc says Elite runs to 8,200 message credits across six sizes, and a Business plan above it publishes credit ranges and no price. Bolt's Pro card says “Starts at 10M” tokens and publishes no rung above it, while its own tokens doc refers in an example to a “Pro 50 plan”.
Plan by plan, on one vendor at a time: what Base44’s plans and credits cost and how Bolt’s token allowance works.
Message credits against tokens
Base44 bills credits and Bolt bills tokens, and the two cannot be converted. Here is how far the published figures go, and exactly where they stop.
There is no single named task priced on both sides. Base44's building figures are scope bands it calls estimates, and the only named jobs it mentions carry no number; Bolt publishes no token figure for any message at any project size. So this section does not offer “one task, two prices” — that comparison cannot be made from what either vendor publishes.
What can be calculated
- Base44 Starter, billed monthly, is $20 a month for 100 message credits. $20 ÷ 100 = $0.20 per message credit.
- Bolt Pro, billed monthly, is $25 a month for 10,000,000 tokens. $25 ÷ 10,000,000 = $0.0000025 per token, or $2.50 per million.
- Base44's one set of named per-action figures is on the integration side, not the building side: about 1 credit per email sent, 1 per generated image, 1 per file upload, and about 5 credits per second of generated video.
Both divisions are ours, from their published numbers, and both are upper bounds rather than unit prices: the same $20 also buys 2,000 integration credits, and the same $25 also buys hosting, a custom domain and expanded database capacity. Neither price is “for building” alone.
What cannot be calculated
- What one building action costs on Bolt, in tokens or in money, at any project size.
- Therefore: what the same piece of work costs on both platforms.
- Therefore: any rate between a Base44 credit and a Bolt token.
- Base44's integration figures have no counterpart at all, because Bolt does not bill a separate balance for what a deployed app does.
The exact missing figure
The missing quantity is precise: the number of tokens Bolt consumes for one named building action, at a stated project size. With that one figure, every line above would multiply out. Without it, nothing does.
Why no exchange rate can honestly be produced
- Bolt's own explanation is that the quantity is not a constant. Their pricing page: “most token usage is related to syncing your project's file system to the AI: the larger the project, the more tokens used per message.” Their tokens doc says the same: “Most of your token usage comes from Bolt reading, understanding, and syncing your project files, so larger projects use more tokens per message.”
- So there is no project-independent figure for Bolt to publish, and it publishes none for any particular project either.
- Base44 disclaims its own figures in the same direction: “There is no set credit amount used per message,” and the published amounts are “estimates based on standard models and average complexity, provided as a guide rather than exact figures”, worked out after the action runs.
- Any exchange rate between the two would therefore be ours, built on one side's estimates and the other side's silence. We do not publish one.
Backend, database and authentication
Base44
An integrated backend and database system is listed on every plan, including the free one, together with authentication and analytics. Reading and writing your app's own database costs no integration credits.
Bolt
Bolt Cloud is described as “enterprise-grade backend infrastructure including hosting, databases, integrations and more”. Unlimited databases are listed on Free and Pro; Pro adds expanded capacity and a choice of database provider.
Mobile apps
Both reach the app stores, by routes that are not the same kind of thing.
Base44
- A Base44 mobile app “runs your published Base44 app inside a secure web view” — “a lightweight native wrapper around your web app that opens only your app's URL.”
- Because of that, published content and design changes “also appear in your app without sending a new version to the Apple App Store or Google Play.”
- Store preparation happens inside the editor, and push notifications can be added when the store files are generated. The scan runs on the free plan, but “to download the files for app submission you must be on the Builder plan or higher.”
- Digital goods cannot be sold in the store app: Base44 apps “don't support Apple In-App Purchase or Google Play Billing yet”, and third-party purchase SDKs “need access to the native layer, which Base44 apps don't expose.” Physical goods and real-world services can be sold with any provider.
- Base44 also ships its own iOS, Android and Mac apps for building, and notes that the iOS price “may differ from the price on base44.com, as Apple applies its own fees.”
Bolt
- Bolt builds mobile apps through Expo: “When you ask Bolt to create a mobile app, it automatically uses Expo to make your app work on multiple platforms”, targeting iPhone and Android from one codebase.
- Publishing targets are the web, TestFlight and the Apple App Store, and Google Play Beta and the Play Store.
- The build and submission happen outside Bolt: you download the code, open it in an editor, install the EAS CLI and run the builds yourself. You need an Expo account, and paid Apple and Google developer accounts to distribute.
- The decision has to be made in the first prompt: “Projects created for web do not easily switch over to mobile.”
When you run out
Base44
“When you reach your credit limit, actions that use credits pause until your next reset.” On the free plan the daily cap pauses credit-using features while monthly credits remain. There is no longer a top-up to buy your way out: the exits are a bigger plan or the reset.
Bolt
Tokens reset on the 1st for free plans and on the renewal date for paid ones. Unused paid tokens roll over and stay valid two months from the start of the cycle that granted them, oldest spent first. At the free daily cap you can still hand-edit existing code in Code view. Reloads are available on the highest monthly Pro plan and on any annual Pro plan.
Who each one suits
Base44 suits you better if
- You want the backend, authentication and hosting to be someone else's problem: Base44 includes them on every plan, including the free one.
- You want a mobile app whose content you can change without a store resubmission, which is what a wrapper around a published URL gives you.
- You want to know what a live app's actions cost before you build it: Base44 publishes per-action figures for its integration credits.
Bolt suits you better if
- You want a codebase you can work on outside the tool: a connected GitHub repo, on any plan, holds a full history that lives outside Bolt.
- You want a native app rather than a wrapped web app: Bolt generates React Native through Expo and publishes to both stores.
- You want no daily ceiling once you are paying: Bolt's paid plans drop the daily token cap, and unused tokens roll over for two months.
Neither of them tells you
- Neither publishes what a single build message costs — the reason the conversion above stops where it does.
- Neither publishes the price of its own upper tiers, so the cost of growing into either one cannot be worked out in advance.
Common questions about Base44 and Bolt
Is Base44 or Bolt cheaper?
Their entry plans are $20 and $25 a month month-to-month, or $16 and $18 billed annually. Beyond that the question has no answer from published figures, because one sells message credits and the other sells tokens, and neither publishes what a single build costs.
How many Bolt tokens is one Base44 credit?
Neither vendor publishes anything that would let you work this out. Bolt states that token use per message depends on the size of your project, so there is no fixed figure to convert, and Base44 calls its own per-message credit amounts estimates calculated after the fact.
Can both build a mobile app for the App Store?
Yes, by different routes. Base44 wraps your published web app in a native shell and prepares the store files in the editor, which needs the Builder plan or higher to download. Bolt generates a React Native app through Expo, which you then build and submit yourself with your own Apple and Google developer accounts.
Do you own the code on both?
Both say so plainly. Base44: “You own everything you build on Base44: your code, your data, your users.” Bolt: “All code that you create with Bolt and StackBlitz is your own code, which you can use for any legal purpose including commercial purposes.”
Which has the better free plan?
They are not measured in the same unit, so this cannot be settled on the published numbers. Base44 gives 25 message credits a month capped at 5 a day, in your personal workspace only; Bolt gives 1M tokens a month capped at 300,000 a day. Base44's free apps must be public; Bolt lists private projects on its free plan.
What happens when you run out on each?
Base44 pauses the actions that use credits until the next reset, and there is no top-up any more — the exits are a bigger plan or waiting. Bolt's free daily cap still lets you hand-edit existing code in Code view, paid tokens roll over for two months, and reloads are available on the highest monthly Pro plan and on annual Pro plans.
For comparison: what Builddu costs
We make a competing product, so treat this section as what it is. It is here because if you are weighing these two, you are probably open to a third.
Builddu charges $20 a month for 100 credits, $49 for 300 and $99 for 600, with top-ups at 100 credits for $19. An AI run is charged the credits it actually uses, rounded up, and publishing costs 1.
They suit you better if
- You want a free plan that renews every month. Both of theirs do; ours is a one-off grant of 20 credits at sign-up.
- You want an established product with the templates and community that come with one. We are small and new.
- You want the vendor's own account of what a mobile build involves. Theirs are documented above; we make no claim here about ours.
One of us against one of them, row by row: Builddu vs Base44 and Builddu vs Bolt. All of our side-by-side comparisons are in one place.
Sources
Everything above about Base44 and Bolt was read from the pages listed here on the dates shown. Prices change, so weigh every figure here against the date beside the source it came from.
- https://base44.com/pricing — checked 2026-10-23
- https://docs.base44.com/Account-and-billing/Credits — checked 2026-10-23
- https://docs.base44.com/Account-and-billing/credit-top-ups — checked 2026-10-23
- https://docs.base44.com/Account-and-billing/Billing-and-plans — checked 2026-10-23
- https://docs.base44.com/documentation/building-your-app/uploading-to-app-stores — checked 2026-10-23
- https://docs.base44.com/Building-your-app/Mobile-experience — checked 2026-10-23
- https://base44.com/terms-of-service — checked 2026-10-23
- https://bolt.new/pricing — checked 2026-10-23
- https://bolt.new — checked 2026-10-23
- https://support.bolt.new — checked 2026-10-23
- https://support.bolt.new/account/tokens — checked 2026-10-23
- https://support.bolt.new/account/corporate-commercial — checked 2026-10-23
- https://support.bolt.new/integrations/git — checked 2026-10-23
- https://support.bolt.new/integrations/expo — checked 2026-10-23
- https://stackblitz.com/terms-of-service — checked 2026-10-23
If a figure here is out of date or wrong, tell us at support@builddu.com.
Base44 and Bolt are trademarks of their owners. We name them for comparison and use no logos or branding of theirs.
For a side-by-side of Builddu and Bolt, see Builddu vs Bolt. For a side-by-side of Builddu and Base44, see Builddu vs Base44. More guides and comparisons.