Do I need to pay for AI at all?
What the free AI plans actually give you
14 plans from 12 of the 13 vendors we track sit in this band, at prices read on each vendor's own pricing or help page on November 6, 2026. Anyone who has never paid for an AI subscription and wants to know what the paywall is actually holding back.
The honest part: 4 of these 14 plans publish no number for their main limit — the vendor describes it in words only. We copy the wording rather than invent a figure, so you can see which purchase you would be making blind.
Every free plan, and what it limits
| Tool | Plan | Price | The limit the vendor publishes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amp | Hobby | Free | Hosted orb rate (a1.tiny, 1 CPU / 2 GB): $0.08/hour |
| Amp | Teams | Free | Member tiers: Members can be on Hobby, Megawatt or Gigawatt |
| Bolt | Free | Free | Tokens: 1M per month |
| ChatGPT + Codex | Free | Free | Codex: GPT-6 Luna at Standard speed in the desktop app, subject to rollout; no message figures publishedNo figure published2 of 4 limits on this plan have no published figure. |
| Claude | Free | Free | Projects: Up to 51 of 5 limits on this plan has no published figure. |
| Cursor | Free | Free | AI usage: Limited agent requests; Limited Chat requestsNo figure published1 of 2 limits on this plan has no published figure. |
| Devin (Windsurf) | Free | Free | Agent usage: Light quota to code with agents; limited model availabilityNo figure published1 of 2 limits on this plan has no published figure. |
| GitHub Copilot | Free | Free | Code completions: 2,000 per month1 of 4 limits on this plan has no published figure. |
| GitHub Copilot | Student | Free | AI credits: An allowance of GitHub AI Credits (amount not published)No figure published1 of 4 limits on this plan has no published figure. |
| Google AI (Gemini, Antigravity) | Free | Free | Storage: 15 GB3 of 4 limits on this plan have no published figure. |
| Kiro | Free | Free | Credits: 50 per month1 of 4 limits on this plan has no published figure. |
| Lovable | Free | Free | Daily build credits: 5 per day, up to 30 per month1 of 6 limits on this plan has no published figure. |
| Replit | Starter | Free | Published apps: 1 free published app, taken down after 30 days3 of 6 limits on this plan have no published figure. |
| v0 | Free | Free | Messages: 7 message/day limit1 of 2 limits on this plan has no published figure. |
Every row links to that vendor's full plan page on this site, where each limit is listed with the vendor page it was copied from and the date. Methodology
Who has nothing at this price
One vendor we track offers no plan in this band, which is itself a useful answer if you were hoping to use one of them at this budget: Augment Code.
Next band
Start from the beginning: should you pay at all?·Filter by budget and use case·All 13 vendors, every limit