Base44 Free Plan Breakdown: Credits, Limits & What You Can Actually Do

Curious what you actually get with the Base44 free plan? It looks generous at first glance — but once you start building and refining an app, the limits become very real, very fast.

In this post I break down every credit type, the hidden daily cap, and a couple of tricks to stretch your free credits as far as possible.

Base44 is an AI-powered no-code app builder. You describe what you want in plain language and the AI generates a working web application for you — no coding required.

It's aimed at founders, makers, and anyone who wants to build an MVP or internal tool without hiring a developer. Check out how to build a $40K/month app with Base44 to see what's possible.

The free plan gives you 25 message credits per month and 100 integration credits.

Those are two completely different credit pools — and understanding the difference is key.

Message credits are used when you talk to the AI while building your app. Every time you type a prompt and hit send, one credit is deducted.

Integration credits are consumed when your users run the app. Every LLM call (e.g. generating text or images via ChatGPT or Gemini), every email sent, every SMS, and every database query costs one integration credit.

In short: message credits are for building, integration credits are for running. Both pools are limited on the free tier.

Here's the part most people miss: even though you get 25 message credits per month, you can only use 5 per day.

That means you can send a maximum of 5 prompts to the AI in a 24-hour window — regardless of how many monthly credits you have left.

One prompt is usually enough to generate an initial app. But as soon as you start refining it — adding features, fixing bugs, adjusting the UI — you burn through those 5 daily credits very quickly.

Beyond the credit limits, the free plan also caps what you can actually build and modify:

• No unlimited apps — you are restricted on the number of projects you can create.
• No in-app code edits — you cannot manually edit the generated code.
• No custom domain — your app runs on a Base44 subdomain.
• No AI model selection — you can't choose between ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude.

To unlock these features you need to upgrade. The Starter plan adds unlimited apps and code editing — great for building a proper MVP. The Builder plan adds a free domain for the first year (on the yearly plan), domain connection, AI model selection, and GitHub integration.

There are two legit ways to earn extra credits without paying:

1. Invite friends — Go to your account settings and invite friends via your referral link. When a friend publishes their first app, you get 10 bonus credits. You can do this up to 5 times, for a maximum of 50 extra credits.

2. Share on social media — Inside your app dashboard you'll find a "win more credits" option. Post about Base44 on LinkedIn or Twitter (minimum 200 characters, minimum 100 followers), tag Base44, and once it's approved you receive 20 bonus credits for free.

Both options help, but they're one-time boosts — not a sustainable replacement for upgrading if you're building seriously.

The free plan is genuinely useful for a first test — you can build a complete app with a single prompt and see what Base44 can do.

But 5 prompts per day is tight once you move into refinement mode. The creator of this video upgraded on day one after building an app he wanted to keep improving. That's a pretty common experience.

If you just want to explore, the free plan is a solid starting point. If you want to ship something real, you'll want to look at the Starter or Builder plan.

Here's a quick overview of what you unlock as you move up:

The Builder plan is the one to go for if you're building something you actually want to sell or share publicly — especially because of the custom domain and AI model flexibility.

You can try Base44 for free here and upgrade whenever you're ready.

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