AI website builder pricing: what an AI website builder costs, and what month two finds
Overview & Key Takeaways
Three tools, three published price lists, and three free tiers that each hide a different gate. What an AI-built site costs is the plan price plus what you find in month two.
The market's answer to this question is a range — "$0 to $160+ per month" — and the range is real. But it is a range across different purchases, not across brands of the same purchase. A portfolio, a booking site and a shop are three things, and the band that contains your answer is decided by which one you are making. What the bands leave out is the part you find in month two, and every tool on the price list hides a different one.
What the market says it costs
| The site you are building | The band |
|---|---|
| Portfolio or brochure site | $0 to $30 per month — a basic or entry-level plan, hosting, and removing the platform's branding |
| Site with booking and payments | $30 to $150 per month — integration credits, appointment scheduling, and payment processing fees |
| Across the whole category | $0 to $160+ per month |
These are the market's own bands, and they answer the question better than a ranking would: the band is chosen by the site, and every tool in the category sells into one of them. The one thing they cannot tell you is what you are buying in month two.
What the three on the price list actually charge
Read from each vendor's own published pricing on 2026-10-22 — not from a roundup.
| Tool | Entry price | What the entry price buys | The gate behind it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base44 | Free $0; Starter $16/mo billed annually ($20 monthly) | Free: 25 AI message credits a month, up to 5 apps. Starter: 100 credits, unlimited apps, a domain | The free tier cannot connect a custom domain, and the free domain on Starter covers year one on yearly billing only |
| Replit | Starter $0; Core $20/mo monthly, $18/mo annual | Starter: daily Agent credits and one published app. Core: unlimited published apps, connectors, Plan Mode | The published app's deployment expires after 30 days, and the "Made with Replit" badge can only be removed on a paying tier |
| Kimi | Adagio $0; Plus $15/mo annual ($19 monthly) | Adagio is the whole assistant. Website deployment is included on every paid tier | The vendor says it is not for business sites — "business sites that require long-term stable hosting with a custom domain" |
Two of the three publish a renewal rate, and both renew flat: Base44's yearly plan renews at the rate it was bought at, and Replit's is the same number in year two. Kimi publishes no renewal term either way.
And the work is metered on all three. Base44 spends AI message and integration credits, Replit bills the agent by checkpoint and the hosting by bytes, compute units and requests, and Kimi's own help centre says that generating a website "usually consumes a significant amount of tokens/credits". A flat plan price is the price of the allowance, not the price of the work.
The four questions in the box beside this query
"Can ChatGPT actually create a website?" — Yes. It writes the code. What it cannot do is give that code a place to live, a certificate, a domain and a way to be found, and that is the part that costs.
"Which AI website builder is best for beginners?" — The one whose free tier does what you need in month one, and the answer is usually not the one with the most features: it is the one you can still edit in month six. Do you need an AI website builder at all? is the honest version of that question.
"Is $1500 a good price for a website?" — It depends which $1500. Forbes Advisor's 2026 guide puts a professional design at $1,500 and up and a DIY build at $0 to $450, with hosting at $15 to $150 a month — so $1,500 is a plausible figure for a site that was built and an alarming one for a renewal. How much should a website cost? works through the year-two half of that.
"What is the cheapest website builder and hosting option?" — A one-page site can cost nothing to run, for as long as the domain is registered, if the hosting is static and the domain is bought at cost. That is the whole answer, and it is a smaller answer than the $30 band.
What it costs here
| Plan | Per month, billed annually | A year | Five years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Start | $2.99 | $35.88 | $179.40 |
| Build | $7.99 | $95.88 | $479.40 |
| Pro | $15.00 | $180.00 | $900.00 |
As of: 2026-10-21. Every rate on the pricing page is real and published, but this deployment is not connected to a payment provider, so there is no button that takes money.
A one-page site is free for as long as the domain is registered here, and the renewal is the same number as the signup rate. There is no AI credit meter on that table and no per-message charge: static hosting is metered by pages, not by prompts.
And one thing this page will not pretend to offer. This deployment is not connected to a payment provider, so the top of the market's band — the site with booking and payments, $30 to $150 a month — is not something this site sells. A site that has to take money needs a provider, and that is a separate purchase from the hosting.
Two questions to ask before you pick anything
- What does month two cost? Not the price on the card: the domain renewal,
the tier you have to move up to, the credit top-up. Each of the three above hides a different one, and all three publish it.
- What does the work cost when it is metered? If the price buys an
allowance, the allowance is the real price. Ask what happens when you run out — whether the answer is a higher plan or a quiet limit.
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Related guides & connected surfaces
- Vendor Audit
Base44 vs zeso: the plan table, the renewal, and what the free tier withholds
The first result on this price list, compared in full.
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Web hosting price: what web hosting costs over five years
The hosting half of a monthly bill, over five years rather than one.
- Documentation
AI website builder for small business: when you need one, and when you don't
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Monthly website maintenance: what a website care plan costs, and when you don't need it
The recurring half of a site that is already running.
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Cheap web hosting for small business: what it costs in year two
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Website builder free trial: what a free AI website builder actually gives you
A free tier is not a discount. Every builder we have audited, what each free plan grants, and the three things it withholds — your domain, your search results, or the price of year two.