Lovable Hosting: What You Get and Pay For
People ask us about Lovable hosting as if it were a separate product you pick, like Netlify or Vercel. It isn't. When you hit Publish, Lovable hosts the app, and there is no hosting plan to compare, no server size to choose and no bill that says "hosting" on it. That is mostly good news. The part that confuses people is everything around it: which bits cost credits, what a custom domain needs,…
Lovable hosting is not a separate product like Netlify or Vercel. When you publish on Lovable, it hosts your app for you without any hosting plan or server size to choose from. While the process is mostly good news, the billing structure can be confusing. The only cost is "run credits" for backend operations such as database reads and writes, file storage, network traffic, edge functions, and AI calls triggered by users. These credits are included in the monthly grant, and additional credits can be purchased.
Publishing a Lovable app on a custom domain is free, but the backend isn't. Lovable's credit balance is used for the work your app performs while running. A brochure site with a contact form costs almost nothing, while a marketplace with complex page loads will incur higher costs. If you run out of credits, the site stays online but may experience delays when backend or AI functionalities are in use.
You can host a Lovable app elsewhere, but it depends on your project's stack. Older React + Vite apps build to a folder of static files, which can be hosted on any static host while using client-side routing. TanStack Start apps, created since May 13, 2026, render on the server and require a host that runs code. The build uses Nitro, which automatically detects the platform and sets up a preset. If your project is on the new stack, you can host it on any platform like Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, or a VPS with Node 22.
To move your frontend without affecting the cost, host it separately. However, moving the backend is necessary if you want to reduce or eliminate run credits as a billing item or if you need more control over infrastructure. The backend migration involves transferring the database, users, storage files, edge functions, and secrets to your own Supabase project.
Lovable provides support for the database and users, but you must handle the rest manually. While there's no strong reason to switch away from Lovable hosting for most apps, it may be worth considering if backend costs become a concern or if you need a different hosting environment.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.