Replit vs Lovable, and what your app still needs after launch
Replit and Lovable both build a working app from a chat, and both host it for you. Lovable suits the founder who wants a web app straight from a chat. Replit suits the founder who wants a full workspace, other languages or more than a web app. Replit gives you a full cloud workspace, Agent and many languages, and bills one credit across Agent’s effort-based work, your deployments and your databases. Lovable writes React code you can sync to your own repository on any plan, and bills building, hosting and your app’s AI from one balance. Neither comes with a support chat for your visitors. The third column is Deacon, an AI customer support agent that answers your visitors from your own docs, with website analytics from the same script. It has a free plan with no card.
Prices read on replit.com/pricing and lovable.dev/pricing on 27 September 2026
How Replit and Lovable charge you
Replit bills Agent by effort, from the credit your app also runs on
On Core and Pro, one monthly credit covers Agent’s paid work, published apps, network transfer and database usage. Free Mode covers everyday Agent work at no cost, within your plan’s allowance. Paid work is billed by effort, so a simple fix typically costs less than a complex build, which is bundled into one checkpoint once the work is done rather than billed step by step. Some of that paid work calls outside AI models, billed at the model’s own public rate straight from your credits. Starter splits its allowance into daily Agent credits with a monthly cap and a monthly cloud credit. Pro’s unused credit carries forward for two months, while Core’s doesn’t roll over. Past it, Core and Pro pay as they go, unless you set a usage limit that pauses usage-based services until your next cycle.
Lovable runs everything from one balance, and sells top-ups
Lovable’s credits pay for building, for hosting your app and its built-in backend, Lovable Cloud, and for the AI features your live app runs. By Lovable’s own examples, making a button grey costs about half a credit and adding sign-up and login about 1.2. Free, Pro and Business plans add 5 build credits a day, capped at 30 a month on Free, plus 20 Cloud credits and 4 AI credits a month. Unused plan credits roll over and, on monthly billing, expire 2 months after they’re issued, and Pro can top up at $15 for 50 credits. At zero, building stops, AI features in your live app stop working and the built-in backend pauses shortly after, though your pages stay up.
The figures in these cards are from replit.com/pricing, Replit’s AI billing guide, lovable.dev/pricing and Lovable’s credits guide, read on 27 September 2026. Replit pricing goes through Replit’s plans and credits in more detail.
Underneath sit the plans. Replit Core is $18 a month billed yearly, or $20 monthly, and Pro is $90 or $100, with Pro’s credit sold in tiers that climb with the amount you buy. Lovable’s Pro starts at $21 a month billed yearly, or $25 monthly, for 100 credits a month, rising to 10,000 credits for $1,875 a month billed yearly, and Business starts at $42 a month billed yearly, or $50 monthly, for the same entry credits plus single sign-on and team controls. Neither charges per seat. Replit’s Core includes up to 5 collaborators and Pro up to 15, all drawing on the one balance, and Lovable workspaces support unlimited members on every plan.
Replit cut its cloud prices on 1 August 2026. Autoscale compute fell from $3.20 to $0.60 per million units, and database storage from $1.50 to $0.35 a GiB a month, though database compute stayed at $0.16 an hour. At those rates, a deployment’s usage comes out of your monthly credit first, and is billed on top of the plan once it runs past it.
On both, a busier app or a harder task spends more credit. Replit’s spending controls cap what you pay past your credit, and Lovable’s auto top-up takes a monthly spend limit.
Replit, Lovable and Deacon, row by row
| Feature | Replit | Lovable | Deacon |
|---|---|---|---|
| How you build | Chat with Agent in a cloud workspace. Replit writes the code, runs it and hosts it, in whichever language you choose | Describe the app in the project chat. Lovable writes React code and runs it on its built-in backend, Lovable Cloud, or on your own Supabase | Nothing to build. One script tag on an app made with either |
| Free plan | Daily Agent credits up to a monthly cap, plus a monthly cloud credit, for one published app that goes down after 30 days | 5 build credits a day, up to 30 a month, plus 20 Cloud credits and 4 AI credits a month | 50 answers a month on one seat, with every feature, no card and no end date |
| Cheapest paid plan | Core, $18 a month billed yearly, or $20 monthly, for a $20 monthly credit shared by Agent, deployments and databases | Pro, $21 a month billed yearly, or $25 monthly, for 100 credits a month plus 5 a day | Starter, $50 a month, or $40 a month billed yearly, for 1,000 answers on three seats |
| What credits pay for | One balance across Agent’s paid work, published apps, network transfer and database usage. A complex build is bundled into one checkpoint that can cost more than a simple one | One balance pays for building, for hosting the app and its backend, and for the AI features your live app runs | There are no credits. Each reply Deacon writes on your live site is one answer, and chats in the Playground never count |
| Unused credits | Core’s monthly credits don’t roll over. Pro’s tiered credits do, for two months, and a credit pack lasts 6 months | Plan credits roll over, and on monthly billing expire 2 months after they’re issued. Top-ups last 12 months | Answers are a monthly allowance, and nothing is billed past it |
| Buying more | A credit pack, in four sizes with a bigger discount on a bigger pack, or auto-reload when your balance runs low | Top-ups on Pro at $15 for 50 credits, or on Business at $30, with auto top-up if you switch it on. None on Free | Move to a bigger plan when you choose to. No plan upgrades itself |
| When credits run out | Core and Pro go on to pay-as-you-go. A usage limit, if you set one, pauses usage-based services until your next billing cycle or until you raise it | Building stops and AI features in the live app stop working. The built-in backend pauses soon after, while your pages stay up | Nothing more is billed. Visitors get a short reply saying Deacon can’t look into that one right now, and are asked for their email unless they’ve already left it in that conversation |
| Where the app lives | A replit.app address from the moment you publish, and you can connect your own domain once it’s live | A lovable.app address on every plan, and your own domain from Pro | Any address you list, so either builder’s address or your own domain |
| Where your data lives | A Postgres database on Replit’s own infrastructure, billed by compute time and storage, up to 10 GiB a database | Lovable Cloud, built on Supabase’s open-source foundation, or your own Supabase project | Deacon answers from the docs and pages you add to it, and takes no actions in your app |
| Code ownership | Your project sits in your own workspace from the first prompt, in the language you chose | Two-way sync with GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket on every plan, the free one included. Editing code inside Lovable, and downloading it, need a paid plan | Deacon adds one script tag and changes nothing else in your code |
| Their badge | The “Made with Replit” badge comes off from Core | The Edit with Lovable badge can be hidden from Pro | No plan shows a “powered by” line, so there’s no badge to pay to remove |
| A chat for your visitors | One you ask Agent to build, with your own AI provider key or Replit AI Integrations from Core, plus a database and a scraper you maintain | A chatbot Lovable builds for you with its AI connector, paid from your credits and looked after by you | Answers from your own docs in seconds, says so when it doesn’t know, and asks for the visitor’s email |
| Seeing what visitors ask | Whatever log you build alongside the chatbot yourself | Each AI call your app makes, with its model, tokens and cost, under Cloud › AI | Every conversation, searchable by what visitors asked, and Topics that group questions, count who asked and label most of them |
How you build
- Replit
- Chat with Agent in a cloud workspace. Replit writes the code, runs it and hosts it, in whichever language you choose
- Lovable
- Describe the app in the project chat. Lovable writes React code and runs it on its built-in backend, Lovable Cloud, or on your own Supabase
- Deacon
- Nothing to build. One script tag on an app made with either
Free plan
- Replit
- Daily Agent credits up to a monthly cap, plus a monthly cloud credit, for one published app that goes down after 30 days
- Lovable
- 5 build credits a day, up to 30 a month, plus 20 Cloud credits and 4 AI credits a month
- Deacon
- 50 answers a month on one seat, with every feature, no card and no end date
Cheapest paid plan
- Replit
- Core, $18 a month billed yearly, or $20 monthly, for a $20 monthly credit shared by Agent, deployments and databases
- Lovable
- Pro, $21 a month billed yearly, or $25 monthly, for 100 credits a month plus 5 a day
- Deacon
- Starter, $50 a month, or $40 a month billed yearly, for 1,000 answers on three seats
What credits pay for
- Replit
- One balance across Agent’s paid work, published apps, network transfer and database usage. A complex build is bundled into one checkpoint that can cost more than a simple one
- Lovable
- One balance pays for building, for hosting the app and its backend, and for the AI features your live app runs
- Deacon
- There are no credits. Each reply Deacon writes on your live site is one answer, and chats in the Playground never count
Unused credits
- Replit
- Core’s monthly credits don’t roll over. Pro’s tiered credits do, for two months, and a credit pack lasts 6 months
- Lovable
- Plan credits roll over, and on monthly billing expire 2 months after they’re issued. Top-ups last 12 months
- Deacon
- Answers are a monthly allowance, and nothing is billed past it
Buying more
- Replit
- A credit pack, in four sizes with a bigger discount on a bigger pack, or auto-reload when your balance runs low
- Lovable
- Top-ups on Pro at $15 for 50 credits, or on Business at $30, with auto top-up if you switch it on. None on Free
- Deacon
- Move to a bigger plan when you choose to. No plan upgrades itself
When credits run out
- Replit
- Core and Pro go on to pay-as-you-go. A usage limit, if you set one, pauses usage-based services until your next billing cycle or until you raise it
- Lovable
- Building stops and AI features in the live app stop working. The built-in backend pauses soon after, while your pages stay up
- Deacon
- Nothing more is billed. Visitors get a short reply saying Deacon can’t look into that one right now, and are asked for their email unless they’ve already left it in that conversation
Where the app lives
- Replit
- A replit.app address from the moment you publish, and you can connect your own domain once it’s live
- Lovable
- A lovable.app address on every plan, and your own domain from Pro
- Deacon
- Any address you list, so either builder’s address or your own domain
Where your data lives
- Replit
- A Postgres database on Replit’s own infrastructure, billed by compute time and storage, up to 10 GiB a database
- Lovable
- Lovable Cloud, built on Supabase’s open-source foundation, or your own Supabase project
- Deacon
- Deacon answers from the docs and pages you add to it, and takes no actions in your app
Code ownership
- Replit
- Your project sits in your own workspace from the first prompt, in the language you chose
- Lovable
- Two-way sync with GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket on every plan, the free one included. Editing code inside Lovable, and downloading it, need a paid plan
- Deacon
- Deacon adds one script tag and changes nothing else in your code
Their badge
- Replit
- The “Made with Replit” badge comes off from Core
- Lovable
- The Edit with Lovable badge can be hidden from Pro
- Deacon
- No plan shows a “powered by” line, so there’s no badge to pay to remove
A chat for your visitors
- Replit
- One you ask Agent to build, with your own AI provider key or Replit AI Integrations from Core, plus a database and a scraper you maintain
- Lovable
- A chatbot Lovable builds for you with its AI connector, paid from your credits and looked after by you
- Deacon
- Answers from your own docs in seconds, says so when it doesn’t know, and asks for the visitor’s email
Seeing what visitors ask
- Replit
- Whatever log you build alongside the chatbot yourself
- Lovable
- Each AI call your app makes, with its model, tokens and cost, under Cloud › AI
- Deacon
- Every conversation, searchable by what visitors asked, and Topics that group questions, count who asked and label most of them
Replit’s prices come from replit.com/pricing, its Core guide and its database billing guide, and Lovable’s from lovable.dev/pricing and its plans guide, all read on 27 September 2026. Lovable’s pricing page draws its plans in the browser, so its prices come from its plans guide. The docs behind the other rows are listed at the end.
What each gives you after launch
Replit counts your traffic, and adds custom events from Core
Publishing is on every Replit plan, but Starter’s one free app carries a “Made with Replit” badge and goes down after 30 days. Core lifts both limits and publishes an unlimited number of apps. Once you turn on Enable analytics, Replit counts a published app’s visitors, pages and referrers over up to 30 days, and from Core, Agent can add custom events. A feedback button can send visitors’ reports and ideas to your inbox. For their questions, Replit has no chat of its own. You ask Agent to build one, wire it to a model with your own key or Replit AI Integrations from Core, and give it a database and a scraper for your docs, then maintain all three yourself.
Lovable counts your traffic, but not campaigns or funnels
Lovable’s analytics start when you publish, with nothing to set up. They show visits, page views, views per visit, visit duration and bounce rate, by source, page, device and country, over ranges up to the last 90 days. They don’t read UTM tags, and for campaigns or funnels Lovable’s docs point you to PostHog. From Pro, project monitoring, still in beta, checks your app on a schedule and emails you the important problems, including errors visitors hit. For visitors’ questions, Lovable will build you a chatbot, which you then look after.
These cards come from Replit’s guide to Core, its guide to Project Analytics and Lovable’s subscription plans guide, read on 27 September 2026. The other pages behind them are listed at the end.
So once your app is live, both count your traffic, Replit once you turn on its analytics and Lovable from the day you publish. Replit’s feedback button also collects the reports people choose to send. Neither answers a visitor’s question unless you have Agent or Lovable build a chat and pay for its replies, and neither groups the questions visitors ask. Those questions are where the week after launch gets busy, and where Deacon comes in.
Choosing between Replit and Lovable
Pick Replit if you want one workspace for more than a web app, whether that’s an automation, a scheduled job or a program in a language Lovable doesn’t touch. Agent works alongside you in that workspace rather than handing back a finished app, and publishing and your database are choices you make, each billed on their own meter once they run past your monthly credit. That gives you more control over where compute and storage go, at the cost of watching three numbers instead of one.
Pick Lovable if you want a web app straight from a chat, with the code already in your own repository. Git sync keeps your project in GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket in both directions, on every plan, the free one included, and one credit balance covers building, hosting and your app’s AI features together, so there’s nothing extra to configure for a database or a deployment type.
Pick either, and the app’s first users will still have questions that neither one answers for you.
Where Deacon fits once your app is live
On Replit or Lovable, answering your users means having a chatbot built, paying for its replies and looking after it yourself. Deacon answers them instead, on your app in seconds, at any hour, from your own docs and in the visitor’s language. When your docs don’t cover something, it says it doesn’t know rather than make an answer up, and asks for the visitor’s email. You’re emailed when they leave one or ask for a person, and your reply from Deacon’s dashboard lands in their chat if it’s still open.
Deacon answers from its own allowance, so it spends none of your Replit or Lovable credits. And where Replit’s Core and Pro go on to pay-as-you-go past their credit, nothing is billed past a Deacon plan’s answers. Each answer you write makes it better. A question your docs missed gets an Answer this button, and what you write becomes part of what Deacon knows. Save & check shows you the reply Deacon now gives and how many other open questions your answer covers.
You also see what people need, beyond the reports a feedback button collects. Every conversation is saved and searchable by what visitors asked, and Topics group the questions, count the people behind each one and label most of them, for example as a bug report, a feature ask or a how-to. The same script runs your website analytics, with visitors, sources, goals, funnels and the JavaScript errors people hit, on every Deacon plan and with an all-time view. Replit’s analytics cover up to 30 days, and Lovable’s cover up to 90 days, without UTM tags or funnels.
It takes one script tag on either builder. On Replit, paste the tag into your app’s layout so it loads on every page, or paste it into the Agent chat and ask Agent to place it. Then republish, since changes in the workspace don’t reach a live app until you do. On Lovable, paste the tag into the project chat and ask Lovable to place it. Deacon and Replit and Deacon and Lovable have every step.
What founders ask about Replit and Lovable
Where each figure was read
Every figure above was read on 27 September 2026, from these pages.
- Replit replit.com/pricing · docs.replit.com/billing/plans/starter-plan · docs.replit.com/billing/plans/replit-core · docs.replit.com/billing/plans/replit-pro · docs.replit.com/billing/ai-billing · docs.replit.com/billing/deployment-pricing · docs.replit.com/billing/about-usage-based-billing · docs.replit.com/billing/managing-spend · docs.replit.com/billing/aug-cloud-billing-updates · docs.replit.com/features/publishing/custom-domains · docs.replit.com/features/publishing/project-analytics
- Lovable lovable.dev/pricing · docs.lovable.dev/introduction/subscription-plans · docs.lovable.dev/introduction/credits-and-usage · docs.lovable.dev/integrations/git-sync-overview
Try Deacon for free
Deacon answers your visitors in seconds from your own docs and shows you what they asked, with no chatbot for Agent or Lovable to build. It spends none of your Replit or Lovable credits, and the free plan needs no card.
For more builders side by side, see the best vibe coding tools or Base44 vs Replit, and Replit alternatives covers what else to weigh Replit against. Deacon’s plans are on the pricing page.