4 months on Lovable. here is exactly what i spent and what i shipped.
writing this because i kept reading "lovable is expensive" or "lovable is cheap" with no actual
numbers attached. here are mine.
i started in january. signed up for the pro plan at $25/mo on month one to test. upgraded to pro+
in february at $50/mo because i was running out of credits mid week. stayed at that level
through april.
total spent on Lovable across 4 months: $175. extras (Supabase paid tier started in feb):
$25/mo x 3 = $75 custom domain for one project: $14 stripe fees as a % of received payments
(not really a "Lovable cost" but related): about $43
total stack spend across 4 months: $307.
what i shipped:
- a small habit tracker for my partner and his cycling team. 11 active users. free. lives on a
.lovable.app subdomain. took about 6 hours of focused build time across 2 weekends.
- a quote and invoice generator for a friend who runs a small landscaping business. she
pays me $40/mo to maintain it. nobody else uses it but it works perfectly for her.
probably 14 hours total over 3 weeks.
- a tiny membership site for a niche newsletter i write. 23 paying members at $5/mo.
revenue: $115/mo. live since march. probably 20 hours of build time over a month, plus
ongoing tweaks.
so the cost basis on this is real. and the revenue from #3 alone has paid back the entire Lovable
spend in roughly 3 months.
what i learned about credits:
● batch your work. dont open the project for one prompt then close it. open it for an hour,
work in a flow.
● write out your prompt in notes first. iterate on the prompt before sending it. saves credits.
● if you hit a wall on a bug, go look at the actual code in the editor view. sometimes you can fix it in 30 seconds with no prompt at all.
nothing dramatic in this post. just numbers. happy to answer questions if any of this is useful.