Pricing
What a build costs, and what the free one covers
Builddu prices work rather than seats: an AI run costs credits, and almost everything around it — reading your code, browsing your data, looking at your app — costs nothing. This page is every one of those numbers, where each comes from, and what happens when you run out.
Start without paying
One AI build, no card, and a project that stays yours afterwards.
- 50 credits when you sign up. No card, and they do not renew.
- Your first AI run is the free build, and the grant is sized to cover it — one run per account, enforced in the database.
- A never-paid account can own 1 project at a time. Deleting it frees the slot, and anyone who has ever paid is permanently outside that limit.
- The preview, the code panel and the database panel all work on that project without costing anything.
What each thing costs
Where a number is held before the work and charged after, both are given.
An AI run
A build, or any change you describe in words.
Cost: Holds 60 credits before it starts, because what a run costs is not known until it finishes. You are charged what it actually spent and the rest is released.
A visual change
Clicking an element and changing its text, styling or image.
Cost: Needs 2 credits available. You are charged the writes that landed plus a rebuild only if one was needed — at most those 2, and on many projects nothing at all.
Publishing
Putting the project on a live URL, and re-publishing after a change.
Cost: 1 credit. It also needs an active paid plan — credits alone do not open it.
Editing code
Opening a file, changing it and saving it.
Cost: Nothing. Saving a file is not an AI run. Making the running app serve it takes a rebuild, which is one or two credits — and on projects that build on write, no rebuild is asked for.
Restoring a version
Going back to an earlier build.
Cost: One or two credits, depending on the project.
Reading anything
The preview, your files, your tables, downloading the whole codebase.
Cost: Nothing. Reads are never billable, and waking a sleeping project is not charged to you either.
Plans
Credits every month, and the things a plan unlocks.
Starter
For a first project or two.
$20 / month
100 credits a month
Pro
For shipping regularly.
$49 / month
300 credits a month
Business
For teams and client work.
$99 / month
600 credits a month
Prefer not to subscribe? A top-up is 100 credits for $19, about $0.19 a credit. Top-up credits buy AI runs and visual changes; publishing needs an active plan.
What a plan changes
Four things, each of them checked server-side.
- Publishing becomes possible. It is checked server-side against a currently active subscription.
- A custom domain becomes possible, through the same check — it is publishing by another door.
- The one-project limit stops applying, permanently, from the first payment onwards.
- Credits arrive every cycle instead of once.
How credits work
Two pools, and they behave differently on purpose.
- There are two kinds of credit. Plan credits come with a subscription and reset at the start of each cycle; they do not roll over, and they end when the subscription does.
- Purchased credits are a separate balance. They never expire, and a plan renewal never touches them.
- Spending uses your plan credits first, so the ones you bought are what is left over rather than what goes first.
- Upgrading part-way through a month adds the difference between the new allowance and the most you have already been granted that cycle — never the same difference twice.
When your credits run out
What stops, what keeps working, and what cannot happen to you.
- A run that cannot be covered is refused before anything starts, and the message says your balance and what was needed.
- Nothing you have made is lost. The project, its preview and its files stay exactly as they are.
- You can still read, edit, save and download your code, and still browse and edit your data.
- Visual changes keep working while at least 2 credits remain.
- A run that ends up costing more than was held takes the difference from what is left and stops at zero. What could not be collected is recorded against that run — it never becomes a negative balance or a later bill.
Common questions
Do I need a card to try it?
No. Signing up gives you 50 credits and the first AI run is free. A card is only needed to publish or to keep building.
What is a credit worth?
It is the unit work is priced in. A top-up is 100 credits for $19, which is about $0.19 a credit; a plan works out cheaper per credit.
Why hold 60 credits for a run that might cost less?
Because the price of a run is not known until it finishes, and we will not start work we cannot be sure you can cover. The hold is released at settlement and you are charged what the run actually spent.
Do unused plan credits roll over?
No. Plan credits reset at the start of each cycle. Credits you bought separately are a different balance and never expire.
Can I buy credits instead of subscribing?
Yes — 100 credits for $19. They buy AI runs and visual changes. They do not open publishing, which needs an active plan.
Can a run cost me more than I have?
No. A run above its hold takes the difference from what is left and stops at zero; the shortfall is recorded against that run rather than charged to you later.
What each of those operations actually does is in how Builddu works and the visual editor. What the free part of that — your tables, the filters, editing records — actually gives you is in your app’s database. How other builders price the same work is set out in our sourced guides.
Start with the free build