Compiled by Amit KumarWhat is Bolt.new?
Bolt.new turns a written description into a working full-stack web application, and runs it in your browser. There is no local environment to set up and nothing to install.
It is made by StackBlitz, whose existing technology already ran Node.js inside the browser — which is why Bolt can execute the code it writes rather than just handing it to you.
It launched on Product Hunt in 2024, took #1 of the day on 30 October 2024, and finished Runner Up for Developer Tools Product of the Year at the 2024 Golden Kitty Awards. It carries 36K followers and a 4.5 rating from 46 reviews. Its most recent release, Bolt Forge, took #1 Day Rank in September 2026.
Prices come from bolt.new/pricing, token mechanics from StackBlitz's support documentation, and the Lite tier from bolt.new/bolt-lite. All read on 24 September 2026.
Is Bolt.new free?
Yes, with two caps that work together: 300,000 tokens a day and 1 million tokens a month.
The monthly cap is the one that binds. At the full daily allowance, 1 million tokens is exhausted in about three and a third days — so for most of the month the daily limit is irrelevant and you are simply out.
That arithmetic is worth internalising before you plan around the free tier. It is not a plan that supports steady daily use at 300K; it is a plan that supports roughly three days of heavy use, or a month of light use, and the daily number describes only how fast you may spend.
Free tokens also do not roll over. Whatever is unused at the end of the cycle is gone.
How much does Bolt.new cost?
Pro is $25 a month for tokens that "start at 10M tokens per month" with rollover. Teams is $30 a member a month. Enterprise is quoted by sales.
| Plan | Price | Tokens | Rollover | Per million tokens |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1M a month, 300K a day | No | — |
| Lite | $9/mo | Not published | Not stated | Not calculable |
| Pro | $25/mo | From 10M a month | Yes, two months | About $2.50 |
| Teams | $30/member/mo | 10M per member | Yes | About $3.00 |
| Enterprise | Sales | Custom | Custom | — |
Per-million figures are our arithmetic from the published price and the entry token allowance.
The pricing page says yearly billing saves "up to 28%" but does not publish the annual price, so the discounted figure cannot be checked. Separately, StackBlitz's support documentation refers to "Pro 50" and "Pro 20" plans that the pricing page does not list, then points back at the pricing page for details — a loop that leaves the plan range genuinely unclear.
What is a token, and how does rollover work?
StackBlitz defines it plainly: "Tokens are small pieces of text. Short, common words like 'I', 'love', and 'cats' are typically one token each, but longer or less common words can be split into several."
The part that determines your bill, though, is not your prompt:
"Most of your token usage comes from Bolt reading, understanding, and syncing your project files, so larger projects use more tokens per message."
This is the single most important thing to understand about Bolt's pricing. Token spend scales with project size, not with how much you type. A one-line change to a large codebase can cost more than a detailed prompt against an empty one. The same plan therefore goes a long way early in a project and shortens as the project grows — which is the opposite of how most people budget.
Rollover, precisely
- Unused paid tokens carry over and stay valid for two months from the billing cycle start.
- They are consumed first in, first out — the oldest bucket empties before the newest.
- Free-plan tokens never roll over.
- Cancelling forfeits everything, rollover included, when the billing cycle ends. Rolled-over tokens need an active subscription to spend.
The FIFO rule is quietly in your favour: it spends the tokens closest to expiring first, so you lose the least. The cancellation rule is not — a balance you were saving disappears with the subscription that earned it.
The $9 plan that is not on the pricing page
bolt.new/bolt-lite sells "a new $9/mo plan that builds with Forge". It does not appear on bolt.new/pricing.
Bolt Forge runs leading open-source models on StackBlitz's own hardware rather than a commercial model API, which is how a $9 tier is possible at all.
It is time-limited to join. StackBlitz's wording: "Sign-ups close Oct 14th, but once you're in, Lite renews at $9/mo for as long as you want it." Read on 24 September 2026, which left about three weeks.
Two cautions before you take that as a bargain. Lite's token allowance is not published anywhere, so its value per token cannot be compared with Pro's. And the performance claims are StackBlitz's own: Forge is said to reach "91% of Bolt's top paid model" on an internal benchmark, and to give "up to 50X more usage" on the most efficient Forge model against Standard mode. Those are vendor-reported figures from an unpublished benchmark, not independent results.
If the deadline has passed by the time you read this, the offer is closed to new sign-ups by StackBlitz's own terms.
Who Bolt.new suits, and who it does not
It suits anyone who wants a working application in the time it takes to describe one: founders validating an idea, designers building a real prototype instead of a mock, and developers spinning up a scaffold they will then take over. Running entirely in the browser removes the setup step that usually eats the first hour.
Against Lovable, the nearest comparison in this catalogue, the distinguishing feature is StackBlitz's in-browser runtime — Bolt executes what it writes in the same tab.
It does not suit large or mature codebases, and that is a pricing argument rather than a capability one: when token spend scales with the size of the project Bolt must read, the economics move against you exactly as the project gets more valuable. It does not suit anyone who needs to forecast cost, given that Lite's allowance is unpublished, the annual price is unpublished, and the support documentation names plans the pricing page does not. And it does not suit anyone planning to pause a subscription, because the token balance goes with it.
What to use instead of Bolt.new, and for which job
Lovable — the nearest comparison here. Same category of prompt-to-application building; worth pricing against Bolt on the size of the project you intend to build, since that is what drives cost.
Bolt Lite at $9, if you find it in time. It is documented only at bolt.new/bolt-lite, not on the pricing page, and StackBlitz states sign-ups close on 14 October. Its token allowance is unpublished, so compare cautiously.
A conventional editor, once the project matures. Because token spend tracks the size of the codebase Bolt must read and sync, the economics work against you precisely as the project becomes more valuable. Export and continue elsewhere.
Do not pause a subscription you have banked tokens on. Cancelling forfeits the balance, rollover included, at the end of the cycle.
Sources
Every figure on this page was read from the pages below on 24 September 2026.
- Bolt.new pricing — free daily and monthly token caps, Pro and Teams prices, and the advertised yearly saving with no annual price shown
- StackBlitz support: tokens — the definition of a token, the statement that usage comes from syncing project files, the rollover and first-in-first-out rules, and the cancellation forfeit
- Bolt Lite — the $9 a month plan, the 14 October sign-up deadline, and StackBlitz's own Forge performance claims
- Bolt.new on Product Hunt — the 2024 Golden Kitty Developer Tools runner-up, the #1 of the day ranking, follower, rating and review counts
