Shortlist · Emergent alternatives
Emergent charges about $10 a month per live app, and its Free plan can’t deploy. DoAny, Replit, Lovable and Base44 keep one app live for $0 over 12 months; DoAny Free also takes real card payments.
Fee calculator
Each product’s cheapest plan that keeps your apps live, plus the hosting charges it publishes. Every price comes from the pages cited in this article.
With one live app, DoAny Free, Replit Starter, Lovable Free and Base44 Free tie for the lowest cost: $0 each over 12 months. DoAny Free can also take real card payments, and the site stays live at zero credits. Emergent Standard costs $240, and hosting takes 50 of its 100 credits a month, leaving 50 for building.
Prices and fees checked September 25, 2026
Scroll sideways to see every column.
| What you pay | DoAny Free | Replit Starter | Rocket.new Pro | Lovable Free | Base44 Free | Emergent Standard |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan that keeps your app live | Free, $0 | Starter, $0 | Pro, $25 a month | Free, $0 | Free, $0 | Standard, $20 a month |
| What hosting costs | Included, uses no credits | One free published app | Not billed separately | Usage, after a 20-credit Cloud grant | No fees beyond the plan | 50 credits a month an app |
| Plan, 12 months billed monthly | $0 | $0 | $300 | $0 | $0 | $240 |
| Platform cost, 12 months | $0 | $0 | $300 | $0 | $0 | $240 |
Sources, checked September 25, 2026
The documented reasons
Each reason comes from Emergent’s own terms and help pages. A dated outside signal follows.
Emergent bills credits for every attempt, including ones that fail or have to be redone, and doesn’t return them, under section 4.6 of Emergent’s Terms. Support doesn’t cover debugging your app, and the Emergent FAQ puts email replies at 24 to 48 hours.
Plans and Credits lists 50 credits a month per deployed app, about $10. One live app takes half of Standard’s 100 credits. After you cancel, apps stay up only while the account holds 50 credits.
Free has 10 credits a month and no deployments, GitHub or top-ups. Emergent’s Terms limit it to personal, non-commercial use, so the first plan that can sell anything is Standard at $20 a month.
Web apps run React or Next.js, FastAPI and MongoDB on shared clusters by default (you can connect your own Supabase or Postgres). Heavy libraries that run in preview may fail in production, and Emergent may temporarily block deployments that strain shared capacity. Flutter, Kotlin and Swift aren’t supported.
Emergent builds the Expo app but documents no in-product App Store upload: its mobile guide has you download the code, install Expo’s EAS tool and run the build and submit commands yourself, with Apple Developer ($99 a year) or Google Play ($25 once) for the store you target. TechCrunch reported in February 2026 that Emergent’s own mobile app, then in testing, publishes straight to both stores; the help guide doesn’t cover that route.
Emergent’s Terms allow training on your code by default, with an opt-out for future use only, while the FAQ says code isn’t used for AI training. The FAQ still lists a retired $10 Starter plan, and the Privacy Notice allows personalized pricing, so your price may differ from another user’s.
Outside signals show a split. On September 25, 2026, Emergent’s Trustpilot page listed 626 reviews: 48% one-star and 38% five-star. Its AI-written summary of 511 recent reviews says most reviewers were “somewhat happy” overall and value how quickly ideas become working apps; on price, it notes costs can escalate rapidly. Emergent invites reviews and had replied to 82% of negative ones. Reviewers are self-selected, so read this as a pattern, not a measurement.
Start here
Exact entry prices and what it costs to keep an app online, with Emergent as the baseline. Credits are different units on every platform, so compare what each one charges for, not the credit counts.
Swipe to compare every column.
| Product | Entry price | Keeping an app live | Best for | Key limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DoAny (ours) | DoAny $0 Free (5 credits a day), which can take real card payments; Pro $25 a month (100 credits plus 5 a day) | Included. Never uses credits, and the site stays live at zero | Non-technical founders launching a web business | No native mobile apps; chat-only editing (code exports and syncs to GitHub); checkout on the sites it builds is Stripe only |
| Replit | Starter $0 (1 published app, which expires after 30 days unless republished); Core $20 a month ($18 billed annually); Pro $100 ($90) | Autoscale from $2 a month plus usage, from monthly credits first | Expo apps uploaded to App Store Connect; existing code | Usage-based hosting grows with traffic |
| Rocket.new | Free (20 credits); Pro $25 a month ($20 billed yearly) for 100 credits | No separate billing for hosting; publishing to your own domain needs Pro | Flutter apps, with Light Solve research from Free; Full Solve from $50 | Two-way GitHub sync for Next.js only; Free tasks public |
| Lovable | Lovable $0 Free; Pro $25 a month ($21 billed annually) for 100 credits | A 20-credit monthly Cloud grant, then the same credits as building; the backend pauses at zero | Web apps with a built-in backend and two-way GitHub sync | Web apps only; can’t import your Emergent code; may train on Free and Pro data unless you opt out |
| Base44 | Base44 $0 Free (25 message credits); Starter $20 a month, or $16 a month billed annually | No fees beyond the plan, per its pricing FAQ | Non-coders shaping an app in a visual editor | Two meters (message and integration credits); GitHub sync from Builder ($50, or $40 billed annually) |
| Emergent (baseline) | Free (10 credits, no deploys); Standard $20 ($17 billed annually); Pro $200 ($167) | 50 credits a month per deployed app, about $10 | Web and Expo mobile apps from one chat | Credits charged regardless of outcome; Expo is the only mobile stack |
One by one
DoAny is listed first because it is ours, and we hold it to the same format as the rest: who it suits, what to watch out for, and the exact price. The order is not a ranking.
Best for: non-technical founders who want a business live, not only an app. DoAny researches your idea and market first, then builds a web app with customer accounts, data and Stripe checkout on its own hosted backend. Payments are direct charges on your own Stripe account, and DoAny takes 0% of your sales on every plan; Stripe’s fees still apply.
Moving from Emergent: you don’t start over: bring your exported Emergent code and database records, and DoAny imports them. You can export your code and data anytime and sync your code to GitHub, and DoAny does not train AI models on your data; DoAny’s Terms rule out equity and revenue share. The DoAny vs Emergent page works through the side-by-side comparison, including a year’s cost.
After launch: Annie posts every day, finds customers and follows up, runs your CRM and answers customers around the clock. Turning on payments, paid renders and new recurring jobs wait for your approval on a button.
Watch out for: no native iOS or Android apps. You change things by telling Annie; the Code view is read-only, there’s no visual editor and no one-click rollback. The checkout on the sites DoAny builds is Stripe only at the moment, with no coupons or free trials. That checkout can’t connect an existing Stripe account yet, so live subscriptions don’t come across with an import. DoAny has no SSO and no connector marketplace. Hosting never uses credits, and when credits run out, work pauses with no overage or automatic recharge.
Price: Free is $0 with no card: unlimited companies sharing 5 credits a day (up to 30 a month), and it can go live and take real card payments; Emergent’s Free plan can’t deploy, and Lovable’s built-in payments need a paid plan. Pro starts at $25 a month for 100 monthly credits plus 5 a day, with your own domain; top-ups cost $15 per 50 credits.
Best for: founders who need an App Store app without a terminal. Replit’s Launch feature builds, signs and uploads an Expo app to App Store Connect from the Publishing tab. It also imports public and private GitHub repositories, so you can keep working on the code you saved from Emergent.
Watch out for: Launch stops at the upload: TestFlight and submitting for review happen in App Store Connect, the web app has to be published first, publishing can take up to 45 minutes, and the bundle ID is permanent after the first publish. Hosting is usage-based: an Autoscale deployment costs a $2 monthly base fee plus compute and requests, taken from your monthly credits first and billed as usage after that.
Price: Starter is free with one published app; the link goes down after 30 days unless you publish it again, and more published apps need Core. Core $20 a month, or $18 billed annually. Pro $100 a month, or $90, with larger Pro sizes up to $2,000 a month.
Best for: founders who want Flutter mobile apps or Next.js web apps with research in the same product. Every plan, Free included, has Light Solve, quick conversational research. Full Solve reports and “competitive intelligence” start on the $50 Rocket plan, and Rocket’s docs said new Intelligence sessions were paused when we checked on September 25, 2026.
Watch out for:
Price: Free with 20 credits. Pro $25 a month, or $20 billed yearly, for 100 credits. The Rocket plan is $50 ($40 billed yearly) for 250 credits and adds Full Solve and market intelligence.
Best for: a web app with a built-in backend and two-way sync with GitHub, so a developer can work on the same code later. Pro includes custom domains and credits that carry over for a month.
Watch out for:
Price: Free is $0 with no card and publishes up to 5 apps on lovable.app addresses. Pro is $25 a month ($21 billed annually) for 100 credits, and Business $50 ($42). Our Lovable alternatives page goes deeper.
Best for: non-coders who want to shape an app in a visual editor. Every plan includes a backend and database, sign-in and analytics, you can ship complete apps on Free, and paid plans add in-app code edits.
Watch out for: two separate meters, message credits and integration credits, and two-way GitHub sync starts on Builder ($50 a month, or $40 billed annually).
Price: Free with 25 message credits a month and up to 5 apps. Starter $20 a month, or $16 billed annually, for 100 message credits and any number of apps; Builder $50, or $40 billed annually.
Decision rules
Swipe to compare every column.
| If you need | Pick | Because |
|---|---|---|
| A web business live without writing code | DoAny | A web app with accounts, data and Stripe checkout; it imports your exported Emergent code and data, and Annie keeps working after launch. Free can take real payments |
| A hard spending stop that keeps the site up | DoAny | Credits stop hard with no overage or auto-recharge, and your site and checkout keep running at zero. Emergent and Lovable offer opt-in top-ups; Replit bills hosting usage past your credits |
| An iPhone app without a terminal | Replit | Launch builds, signs and uploads to App Store Connect |
| To keep working on your Emergent code | Replit | It imports public and private GitHub repositories |
| A Flutter app, with research in the product | Rocket.new | Builds Flutter mobile and Next.js web apps; Light Solve research from Free, Full Solve from $50 |
| A web app a developer can take over | Lovable | Two-way GitHub sync, with a built-in backend |
| An app you shape by hand in an editor | Base44 | A visual editor, backend and database on every plan; you can ship complete apps on Free |
| A web app and its mobile twin on one backend | Stay on Emergent | The one-click conversion shares the backend, data and login; Mobile Agent from $20 |
Reasons to stay
Leaving has a cost too. Emergent is still the better choice if most of these describe you.
Per-run budget. Each run spends up to 5 credits by default, adjustable to 1,000 per task. Keep it low while you learn what things cost.
Auto-Recharge. Check whether it is on. It can buy credits for you at a threshold, for example 500 when the balance hits 0.
GitHub before experiments. Rollback is free, but rebuilding the work you rolled back costs credits again. Save to GitHub before a risky change.
Training. If it matters to you, email privacy@emergent.sh to opt out of training on your content; under Emergent’s Terms, the opt-out applies from then on. The Privacy Notice says the same address will exclude your workspace from internal quality and improvement work.
Switching
These steps apply whichever alternative you choose. Do them in order, before you cancel.
After you cancel, deployments stay active only while the account holds 50 credits. Deleting the account stops deployments and removes all projects and data after 45 days, and forfeits every unused credit, top-ups included.
This needs Standard or Pro. If a push conflicts, Emergent’s advice is to push to a new branch. Replit imports that repository, Rocket.new imports Next.js TypeScript projects only, Lovable can’t import it, and DoAny imports your existing code and database records, so you don’t start over.
Preview and production never share data, so export from production. Use MongoDB’s export tool or ask support, which can take up to 24 hours. The code on GitHub doesn’t include your records, so bring this export to the new tool too. DoAny imports database records as well as code; customer logins and passwords don’t move automatically, so plan for customers to sign in again or reset their password there.
Production secrets live in the Deployment pane, and editing .env doesn’t change them, so check the live values there and re-enter them on the new host. AI calls through the Universal Key bill Emergent credits; the new app needs its own AI keys or a built-in AI feature.
A web app and a mobile app made with Emergent’s conversion share one backend that can’t be split, and taking it down stops both. Decide which one moves first; the other keeps depending on Emergent.
Point your domain at the new host once the new app works with your real data and payments. Cancel Emergent last, and keep 50 credits until the switch is done.
Moving to DoAny specifically? The DoAny vs Emergent page walks through payments go-live, the domain step in DoAny and a worked yearly cost.
Questions founders ask
Replit comes closest to doing it for you: its Launch feature builds, signs and uploads an Expo app to App Store Connect, and you finish TestFlight and review there. Rocket.new builds Flutter apps, and its FAQ sends iOS submission through Xcode. Emergent itself builds Expo apps, but its guide has you run Expo’s EAS tools from a terminal. DoAny and Lovable build web apps, not native store apps.
DoAny, Rocket.new and Base44 charge nothing extra for hosting. DoAny’s hosting never uses credits, so the site stays live at zero credits, even on the $0 Free plan. Replit’s Autoscale hosting has a $2 monthly base fee plus usage, taken from monthly credits first. Lovable’s hosting draws on a 20-credit monthly Cloud grant, then on the same credits as building. Most of Emergent’s pages charge 50 credits, about $10, a month per deployed app.
All five alternatives start at $0, and DoAny’s $0 Free plan can go live and take real card payments with 0% of sales (Stripe’s fees apply), while Lovable’s built-in payments need a paid plan and Emergent’s Free plan can’t deploy. The shortlist table above lists every entry price, with the yearly rates.
Save it to GitHub first, which needs Emergent Standard or Pro. Replit imports public and private GitHub repositories; Rocket.new’s docs describe importing Next.js TypeScript repositories only; Lovable cannot start a project from existing code. DoAny imports your existing code and database records, so you don’t start over. Export the production database separately, since the code on GitHub doesn’t include your data. Live subscriptions don’t move with an import: on DoAny, subscribers re-subscribe through the new checkout.
DoAny pauses Annie’s work but keeps the site and checkout running, with no overage or automatic recharge. Rocket.new pauses generation until your next billing cycle or a top-up. Lovable’s built-in backend pauses shortly after you hit zero, unless you turn on its optional auto top-up, which can have a monthly limit. Replit bills hosting as usage once monthly credits are spent. Base44’s pricing FAQ points you to a paid plan when you hit your monthly credit limit. Emergent pauses development and offers optional Auto-Recharge.
No. Emergent already builds Expo mobile apps and supports GitHub push, pull and branches on Standard. Switch for something it doesn’t give you: hosting that never uses credits, a Free plan you can sell on, a plan with no auto-recharge option or charges above its limits, Flutter, or a documented App Store upload inside the product, which Replit’s Launch provides.
Source record
DoAny’s entry is first-hand. Every other product is described from its own pricing page, docs and terms. The Trustpilot figures are a dated third-party signal, not our test result.
Prices are in US dollars, exclude tax and payment processing, and were rechecked on September 25, 2026. Where a vendor’s pages disagree, the note under the source says how.
Lists 100 credits a month on Standard and, separately, 10 free monthly credits on each paid plan; it does not say whether those stack.
Also lists retired prices (Free 5 credits, Starter $10) that no longer match the pricing page.
The one Emergent page that calls the 50-credit deployment charge one-time; it still refers to a Starter tier that is no longer sold.
Third-party press report from February 2026, when Emergent’s own iOS and Android app was in testing.
Self-selected reviewers, and Emergent invites reviews. Figures as displayed on September 25, 2026 (626 reviews).
Autoscale pricing: $2 a month base fee, $0.60 per million compute units and $0.40 per million requests. The page doesn’t say how much of each plan’s monthly credits covers them; it points to the pricing page.
The pricing cards say credits never expire; Rocket’s credits doc says unused credits expire when you cancel.
On September 25, 2026 this page said Rocket is temporarily pausing new Intelligence sessions.
Publishing goes to a staging URL for testing, where the app is live and only paid plans can unpublish it; the Production tab publishes the live app on your own domain, which Rocket’s custom-domain page says needs Pro.
Built-in payments need Pro or higher; on the Free plan you connect your own Stripe account instead.
The page shows annual billing by default; the monthly prices ($20 Starter, $50 Builder) appear under the Monthly toggle.
Put the evidence to work
Start on DoAny’s Free plan: 5 credits a day, no card. Bring your exported Emergent code and data; DoAny imports them, and Annie puts the first version live on your own doany.site address. Test checkout with Stripe test cards, press Go live to take real payments on the same Free plan, and cancel Emergent only once you’re happy. The side-by-side comparison is in DoAny vs Emergent, or browse every comparison.