Against the alternatives

Five rivals. The same six questions.

Every cell in the table below comes from the competitor’s own published pages, quoted rather than characterised. Where a page does not answer the question, the cell says “not published” — on a table whose headline is that nobody publishes the price, that is the answer.

See the table Try the estimator

ameliasagent.com/compare

A landing page for my SaaS, with pricing and a sign-up.

the rate is under the composerprinted on the answer after · $0.0096

What it actually asks

Six questions, asked of six builders.

Know the rate first

The model’s rate is under the composer before you send and the cost is printed on the answer — not a bill in a currency you cannot price.

Choose the model

300+ models, each priced, instead of one fixed model or a paid-tier-only picker.

Keep what you paid for

You pay for what ran, not for credits that expired before you used them.

Your code, a git repo

From the first turn — not an export button you have to remember to press.

Your memory, a repo you own

Portable markdown, not a black box only their own app can read.

Run it yourself for $0

Your own keys, your own hardware, nothing reaching us.

What it costs, at your usage

Compare it for what you use.

Three questions, one slider each: what a month of asking costs, what a month of building costs, and what it costs as people join. Ours is the only line on any of the three charts that moves, because everybody else sells a flat subscription — and a flat bar is not “cheaper”, it is the price of a box whose contents they do not publish. Every rival figure comes from that rival’s own published page, dated in the caption — and where a page would not give us one, the bar says so instead of guessing.

What a month of asking costs 600 answers a month

Amelia’s Chat AI $5.99 $5.99 a month · $2.50 of usage included · then $0.0012 an answer

ChatGPT Plus $20.00 flat · usage metered in five-hour windows

Claude Pro $20.00 flat · “usage limits that reset on a rolling five-hour session window”

Perplexity Pro price not published to us

If every single answer used a frontier model at $0.05 instead, the same plan would be $33.49 — the worst case, not the normal one.

What each one gives you
What you get	Amelia’s Chat AI	ChatGPT Plus	Claude Pro	Perplexity Pro
The price of the answer, printed on the answer	yes	no	no	not published
You pay for what you actually asked	yes	no	no	not published
No five-hour usage window	yes	no	no	not published
Files, photos and videos in the chat	yes	yes	yes	not published
Memory that carries between chats	yes	yes	yes	not published
Upgrade to a plan that builds and publishes	yes	no	no	no

Ours: $0.0012 an answer past the $2.50 included — the median we actually billed per turn at the Balanced posture, in the same dollars the app itself prints on every answer. Claude Pro $20 ($17 billed annually), claude.com/pricing, 6 Sep 2026. ChatGPT Plus $20, openai.com/chatgpt/pricing — that page refuses automated readers, so this is the figure already on this site, read by a person on 31 Aug 2026. perplexity.ai would not answer a fetch on 6 Sep 2026.

What a month of building costs 120 builds a month

Pro $12.00 $12 a month · $3 of usage included · then $0.009 a build turn

Pro Plus $35.00 $35 a month · $6 of usage included · a database, and your own domain

Lovable Pro $25.00 $25 for 100 credits — credits, not published per build

Replit Core $20.00 $20, “$20 towards most powerful models” — effort, not published per build

Bolt Pro $25.00 $25 for 10M tokens — tokens, not published per build

Base44 Starter $16.00 $16 for 100 message credits — credits, not published per build

Retool Business $65.00 $65 per builder — a seat, not a build

What each one gives you
What you get	Ours	Lovable	Replit	Bolt	Base44	Retool
The price of the build, before and after	yes	no	no	no	no	no
Choose the model	yes	no	not published	not published	yes	no
Your code as a git repo from the first turn	yes	no	no	no	no	no
You pay for what ran, not for credits that expired	yes	no	not published	no	not published	no
Run it yourself for $0	yes	no	no	yes	not published	no

Ours: the plan price plus $0.009 a build turn past the included usage — the heaviest real account's average, so the pessimistic figure. Replit Core $20, replit.com; Bolt Pro $25 for 10M tokens, bolt.new; Base44 Starter $16 for 100 message credits, base44.com; Retool Business $65 per builder ($50 billed annually), retool.com — all 6 Sep 2026. Lovable Pro $25 for 100 credits, lovable.dev/pricing 27 Aug 2026: that page renders its plans in the browser and would not give them to a fetch on 6 Sep, so the figure is the dated one already on this site.

What a month costs as people join 20 people

Enterprise $119.00 $119 a month flat · everybody included, no seat fee · usage at cost + 20% on top

ChatGPT Business $400.00 $20 per user, per month

Claude Team $500.00 $25 per seat, per month — $20 billed annually

Retool Business $1,300 $65 per builder, per month — and $18 for every internal user who only looks

Lovable Teams price not published to us

What each one gives you
What you get	Enterprise	ChatGPT	Claude	Retool	Lovable
Everybody at the company included, no seat fee	yes	no	no	no	not published
Adding somebody costs nothing	yes	no	no	no	not published
The price of every turn, printed on the turn	yes	no	no	no	not published
A budget per person, and a request when they hit it	yes	not published	not published	not published	not published
A price published at all, at this size	yes	yes	yes	yes	no

Ours: $99 a month billed yearly, or $119 monthly — whatever the headcount. Both are founding prices for the first hundred companies, and both are theirs permanently; what it costs after that is not set yet. Usage is billed on top at cost plus the plan’s 20%. Claude Team $25 per seat ($20 billed annually), Enterprise by conversation, claude.com/pricing; Retool Business $65 per builder ($50 billed annually) plus $18 per internal user, retool.com/pricing — both 6 Sep 2026. ChatGPT Business $20 per user, openai.com/chatgpt/pricing — that page refuses automated readers, so this is the figure already on this site, read by a person on 31 Aug 2026. lovable.dev/pricing would not render for a fetch on 6 Sep 2026.

The same six questions, asked of all six
Feature	Lovable	Replit	Bolt	Base44	Retool	Amelia’s Agent
Know the cost before you run it	No	No — “effort-based”, priced after	No — billed in tokens as it works	No — spends “message credits”	n/a — per seat	Yes, per turn
Choose the model	No	Not published	Not published	On paid plans	n/a	300+, each priced
Unused allowance	Daily credits expire	Not published	Rolls over one month	Not published	Seat billed anyway	You pay for what ran
Your code, as a git repo	Export	Sync to GitHub	Export	Two-way GitHub sync	Inside Retool	From the first turn
Your memory, as a repo you own	Not published	Not published	Not published	Not published	Not published	Yes — markdown other tools can read
Run it yourself for $0	No	No	bolt.diy, your own keys	Not published	Self-host, still per seat	Yes, with your own keys

Replit, Bolt and Base44 columns from replit.com, bolt.new and base44.com as published on 29 August 2026; Replit Core is $20 a month with “$20 towards most powerful models”, Bolt Pro is $25 for 10M tokens, Base44 Starter is $16 for 100 message credits. Lovable and Retool figures from lovable.dev and retool.com as published on 27 August 2026 — Lovable Pro is $25 a month for 100 credits, Retool Business is $50 per builder per month billed annually. “Not published” means their page does not answer the question — which, on this table, is the finding.

The question that decides it

Nobody else will tell you the price.

Credits are a currency with no published exchange rate. Seats are a bill that arrives whether anyone built anything or not. Here the unit is a dollar: what the provider charged us plus 20–30% — 30% on the trial, Amelia’s Chat AI and Pro, 28% on Pro Plus, 22% on Pro Max — with that rate under the composer before you send and what the answer cost printed on the answer. Free to start with no card, chat from $4.99 a month and building plans from $10 a month billed annually, and a spending limit on from day one.

The table concedes points on purpose — Base44’s two-way GitHub sync and published model select, Bolt’s open-source sibling — because a comparison that cannot concede a point is an advert. Check every cell against their pages; that is the point. And if you want to know who is making these claims: a software company that has shipped for other businesses since 2005.

One at a time

Already decided which one you are leaving?

The table above is for weighing all five at once. If you have narrowed it to one, each of these answers that comparison on its own — same sourced cells, none of the noise from the others. Every alternative page on this site, one place, sorted by what it replaces.

AI app builders

Coming from Replit — effort-based billing, priced after the work
Coming from Base44 — message credits with no published exchange rate
Coming from Lovable — daily credits that expire
Coming from Bolt — tokens billed as it works

Website builders

Coming from Wix — the site, not a rental you keep paying for
Coming from Squarespace — a subscription, versus a repo you actually take with you
Coming from Webflow — export used to cost extra
Coming from Framer — priced in dollars, not AI credits
Coming from WordPress — nothing to update, nobody to hire
Coming from Elementor — not a plugin bill on top of a host

AI coding tools

Coming from ChatGPT — ships what it writes, rather than pasting code for you to wire up
Coming from Claude Code — the same idea, with no terminal to learn
Coming from Cursor — for people who do not want an editor at all
Coming from GitHub Copilot — builds the whole thing, not just the next line

Scheduling

Coming from Calendly — a booking system you own, built rather than rented

See the price before you spend it.

Type what you want on the home page — it estimates the cost before you sign in.

Try the estimator See pricing

Questions

Asked, answered

Is there a Lovable alternative that shows the price before each build?

Amelia's Agent publishes the model's rate under the composer before you send and prints what the answer cost on the answer. Lovable, Replit, Bolt and Base44 bill in credits, tokens or 'effort' that are priced after the work has happened.

Which AI app builders let you choose the model?

Amelia's Agent offers 300+ models, each with its published price shown before you spend anything. Base44 publishes model selection on paid plans. Lovable does not offer a choice, and Replit and Bolt do not publish one.

Can I run any of these for free on my own machine?

Amelia's Agent has a self-hosted path: the same agent on your own hardware with your own model keys, and we charge nothing for it. Bolt has an open-source sibling, bolt.diy, which also runs on your own keys. Retool self-hosting is still billed per seat.