# Bolt: building sites and apps from a prompt in the browser > Bolt (bolt.new) builds sites and apps from a prompt, with plan mode, a database and publishing. Plans, token costs and when it is the right tool for you. *Tags: ai, tools, vibe-coding, prototyping* --- > [!info] Quick Definition > **Bolt** (bolt.new) is a tool that builds sites and applications from a prompt, in the browser. According to its help center, it can build marketing sites, portfolios, stores, dashboards and internal tools. It helps you go from an idea to a published version without installing anything. ## What does Bolt offer? Bolt works with two modes in the chat box: build and plan. In plan mode you talk, ask questions and generate a plan without changing your project; when it is on, the "Plan" button turns blue. If you read older tutorials that mention "Discussion Mode", that was the name of the previous agent's mode, which according to its help center was retired on August 3, 2026 and replaced by plan mode. The rest of the product is grouped under Bolt Cloud: built-in hosting, domains and database. When a project needs data, Bolt creates the database for you; the help center says there is no limit on databases and nothing for you to set up. To publish, you use the Publish button at the top right. Every project gets a free bolt.host subdomain. Connecting your own domain requires a paid plan, and you can only connect it to a site that is already published. If you buy the domain through Bolt, it is locked for 60 days from the purchase date. Besides sites and apps, the help center mentions Bolt Slides for building presentations. ## Why does it matter to a designer? Because plan mode puts you in the right position: discussing scope before building. If you describe a screen ambiguously, the code comes out ambiguous. If you force yourself to write what data it shows, what states it has and what happens on failure, the prototype comes out better and you spend fewer tokens fixing it. It is also a good place to test a landing page or portfolio idea with your own content. What it is not good for is acting as a design system: decisions about tokens and components remain yours. To compare it with similar tools, see [[lovable|Lovable]], [[v0|v0]] and [[vibe-coding-tools-comparison|the vibe coding tools comparison]]. ## How are tokens spent? Plans are measured in tokens, the units of text the model processes (see [[tokens|tokens]]). Every iteration consumes tokens, especially when the project is large. Two rules from the help center are worth knowing: - **Free plan:** there is a daily cap of 300K tokens and a monthly cap of 1M. The daily allowance resets every day and does not carry over; the monthly one resets on the 1st of each month. Unused tokens are lost. - **Paid plans:** unused monthly tokens roll over and stay valid for two months from the start of the billing cycle in which you received them. Moving to a paid plan removes the daily cap. Plan mode spends less because it changes nothing in the project. In practice, an efficient workflow makes small changes, reviews each one and uses plan mode before big changes. That way you avoid spending tokens on rewrites. ## Which plans exist? According to the official pricing page and the help center, checked on October 28, 2026, in USD: | Plan | Price | Tokens | What it adds | |---|---|---|---| | Free | 0 | 1M a month, capped at 300K a day; no rollover | Public and private projects, "Made in Bolt" badge on the published site, uploads up to 10 MB | | Pro | 25 a month; annual billing saves up to 28% | 10M a month, no daily cap; unused tokens roll over | No Bolt badge, your own domain, uploads up to 100 MB | | Teams | 30 per member a month | Each member gets a quota based on their tier; not shared | Uploads up to 100 MB, private npm registries, SSO | | Enterprise | Custom | Custom | SSO, audit logs and compliance (SOC 2, GDPR, ISO 27001), custom upload limits | Prices change and there are temporary offers. A post on Bolt's own blog once showed Pro at 18 dollars, so confirm the price at bolt.new/pricing before paying. ### Bolt Lite and Forge In September 2026 Bolt launched Forge, a preview mode that builds with open-source models running on its own hardware, and Bolt Lite, a 9-dollar-a-month plan that only gives access to Forge (no Standard or Max agents, and only the built-in database). According to its help center, prompts and code sent through Forge are anonymized and shared with Bolt's partners to train open-source models, and you must accept those terms before using it. The Lite page said sign-ups closed on October 14, a date that has passed; it is not clear whether it is still open to new users. ## When should you NOT use Bolt? - When the project already exists and has its own code. Bolt is designed for new projects. - When the data is sensitive. Check where it is stored and, if you use Forge, remember that what you send may be shared in anonymized form with partners. - When your budget cannot support iteration. Every attempt spends tokens, and on the free plan the daily cap runs out fast on large projects. - When you need to control deployment on your own infrastructure. Bolt Cloud is the natural path, but it is Bolt's path. To understand what publishing on your own involves, see [[deploy-for-designers|deploy for designers]]. ## Example Illustrative example: a freelance designer wants a portfolio with three projects. Before asking for anything, they turn on plan mode and write: "I want a one-page portfolio with a hero, three case studies and a contact form. Each case has a title, a summary and an image." Bolt proposes the structure without touching the project. Then they request the page in two steps: first the hero and the case studies, then the form. They review each step in the browser, fix the image sizes and publish. Since they want their own domain, they move to Pro and connect it to the already published site. What they learned: plan mode saved tokens, and reviewing in parts meant they did not have to rebuild the whole page. ## Common mistakes - Asking for the full site in one prompt before defining the content. - Not using plan mode before big changes. - Spending tokens on style tweaks you could make in a single change. - Publishing without reviewing the mobile version and the copy. - Leaving the "Made in Bolt" badge on a site for real clients instead of moving to a paid plan. - Trying to connect a domain before the site is published. ## Sources - [Bolt: pricing page](https://bolt.new/pricing) - [Bolt: plan before building with Plan Mode](https://support.bolt.new/best-practices/discussion-mode) - [Bolt: tokens](https://support.bolt.new/account-and-subscription/tokens) - [Bolt: what is Bolt Cloud](https://support.bolt.new/bolt-cloud) - [Bolt: publish your project to a live website](https://support.bolt.new/bolt-cloud/hosting/publish) - [Bolt: Bolt Forge](https://support.bolt.new/account-and-subscription/bolt-forge) - [Bolt: help center](https://support.bolt.new/) --- Source: https://www.fernandoux.com/en/wiki/ai/bolt/