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. 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 25 September 2026

How Replit and Lovable charge you

Replit splits one credit three ways, and doesn’t publish a flat rate

Replit’s monthly credit covers Agent’s paid work, published apps, network transfer and database usage from one balance. Agent bills by effort: 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, so unlike Lovable there’s no round number for what a single reply costs. Starter’s credit is a daily allowance with a monthly cap; Core and Pro get one monthly balance, and Pro’s carries unused credit forward. Monthly credits don’t themselves roll over, and past them, usage-based services pause until your next cycle or a credit pack.

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. Monthly plan credits roll over for 2 months on monthly billing, 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 25 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, so the figures above are newer than they look. 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. Those apply on top of the plan once a deployment’s own usage runs past your monthly credit.

Either way, a busier app or a harder Agent task means a bigger bill from your builder, and Replit’s spending controls and Lovable’s usage alerts both let you cap it before it surprises you.

Replit, Lovable and Deacon, row by row

Replit, Lovable and Deacon, feature by feature
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	Monthly credits don’t roll over. Pro’s tiered credits do, 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	Usage-based services pause until your next billing cycle or until you raise your usage limit. Free Mode and your daily Agent credits keep working	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 your own domain from Core	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 reads what you point it at, and stores none of your app’s data
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 as a zip, 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: Monthly credits don’t roll over. Pro’s tiered credits do, 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: Usage-based services pause until your next billing cycle or until you raise your usage limit. Free Mode and your daily Agent credits keep working
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 your own domain from Core
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 reads what you point it at, and stores none of your app’s data

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 as a zip, 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 25 September 2026. Both pricing pages draw their monthly prices in the browser, so those come from the price data each page loads. The docs behind the other rows are listed at the end.

What each gives you after launch

Replit adds logging and analytics once you’re on 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, publishes an unlimited number of apps and adds built-in logging and analytics for what you’ve published. For your visitors’ 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 visitors, 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 and Lovable’s subscription plans guide, read on 25 September 2026. The other pages behind them are listed at the end.

So once your app is live, both leave the same two gaps. Nobody answers your visitors unless you build a chat and pay for its replies, and neither sums up what those visitors wanted to 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 the fastest path to a web app 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.

Both are built for making the app. Looking after the people who use it is another job.

Where Deacon fits once your app is live

Once people start using your app, the same few questions come in again and again, and each one takes you away from building. Deacon answers them on your app in seconds, at any hour, from your own docs and in the visitor’s language, with no flows to build. 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 nothing is billed past a 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. 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, and an all-time view. Neither Replit nor Lovable’s own analytics read UTM tags or build 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 use “Copy the prompt for your agent” to have Agent add it and check it’s live, 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

Lovable, if you’ve never written code, because it says so itself: “no technical knowledge needed”. It turns a chat straight into a hosted web app. Replit suits a beginner who also wants to learn a language in a real workspace, since its Starter plan gives you a full cloud environment, not just a chat window, with Agent alongside you as you go.

At the entry level they’re close. Replit’s Core is $18 a month billed yearly, or $20 monthly, and Lovable’s Pro is $21 billed yearly, or $25 monthly. What the money buys differs. Core’s $20 monthly credit is shared by Agent’s effort-based checkpoints, your deployments and your databases, so a busy app draws it down faster. Pro’s 100 credits cover only building, hosting and AI features inside Lovable, and roll over for a month if unused. Above the entry tier, both climb by the credits you buy: Replit Pro starts at $90 a month billed yearly for a bigger, rolling balance, and Lovable’s Pro tiers run up to $1,875 a month for 10,000 credits.

From Lovable, yes on every plan. Its Git sync keeps your code in your own GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket repository in both directions, and downloading it as a zip needs a paid plan. Replit doesn’t need an export step the same way, because your project already sits in your own workspace from the first prompt, in the language you chose, rather than inside a managed platform.

No, on either. A free Replit app publishes to a replit.app address, and a free Lovable app to lovable.app. Replit connects your own domain from Core, at $18 a month billed yearly, and Lovable from Pro, at $21 a month billed yearly. Deacon works on any of these addresses, because you list the ones it should run on.

Yes. On Replit, a chatbot Agent builds you calls a model either with your own key or, from Core, with Replit AI Integrations, billed at the model’s own public rate straight from your credits, alongside your deployments and databases. On Lovable, a chatbot’s calls are billed by the model and the tokens, first from the 4 free AI credits a month and then from your general credits. Replit chatbots and Lovable chatbots go through each in detail. Deacon’s answers come from its own plan and spend none of either.

Build your app, for a start. Replit also runs automations and scheduled jobs alongside a web app, in whichever language you choose, and Lovable can build a chatbot that does whatever you ask it to, including looking up a signed-in user’s own data. Deacon isn’t a builder. It’s a chat widget and an analytics script you add to an app you’ve already built. It takes no actions in your app, so it won’t update a record or book something for a visitor, and it declines questions about a visitor’s own account or data.

Where each figure was read

Every figure above was read on 25 September 2026, from these pages.

Try Deacon for free

Deacon answers your visitors in seconds from your own docs, says so when it doesn’t know, and shows you what they asked, on an app built with Replit, Lovable or anything else. It spends none of your builder’s credits, and the free plan needs no card.

For more builders side by side, see the best vibe coding tools, and Replit alternatives covers what else to weigh Replit against. Deacon’s plans are on the pricing page.

Replit vs Lovable, and what your app still needs after launch

How Replit and Lovable charge you

Replit splits one credit three ways, and doesn’t publish a flat rate

Lovable runs everything from one balance, and sells top-ups