Short answer: the best AI app builder in 2026 depends on where your app has to end up. If it must reach the App Store and Google Play on a small budget, Choicely gets you furthest — a free tier that builds a real app (300 credits a month, no card) and store publishing from $25/month. If you're building a web app, Lovable at $25/month is the strongest pick, and Bubble is the pick for complex logic. Among the new prompt-to-app startups, Bilt is the most forward-looking (Figma import, a real MCP server), Newly has the best store-compliance help but no free tier, and CatDoes is the strongest web-plus-mobile all-rounder — though publishing from it starts at $42/month, billed yearly. Every price below was checked on the vendor's own pricing page, and dated.
One thing to know before the list: Choicely publishes this article and appears in it, so read our own entry with that in mind. We've marked where a rival is the better pick, because a ranking where the publisher wins every row isn't worth your time. Full methodology and sources at the end. Last verified: August 3, 2026 — every figure below was re-checked on the vendor's own site on publish day.
Two questions cut through most of the marketing in this category: what does the free tier actually let you do, and what does it really cost to get an app into the stores? Here is both, from each vendor's own pricing page. We deliberately don't print a "credits" column — Newly's credits, CatDoes' dynamic credits and Bilt's tokens measure different things and can't be compared — and we state the billing basis, because several of these prices default to yearly on the vendor's site.
| Builder | Free tier — what it really includes | Cheapest paid plan (billing basis) | Path to the app stores | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Choicely | 300 credits/month (up to 50/day), no card — build a real app and test it on your own phone | $25/mo Premium, billed monthly ($21/mo on annual billing; Business $50/mo) | Both stores from Premium; Choicely runs its own build pipeline including its own APK and AAB builders; you submit under your own accounts | 2026-08-03 |
| CatDoes | 25 one-off credits, web deploy only, with a badge — cannot publish to stores | $17/mo Core, billed yearly — yearly is the pricing page's default display, 16% below monthly billing | Store release from Starter, $42/mo billed yearly, under your own developer accounts; on Android it can generate the AAB and submit it to your Play Console via OAuth | 2026-08-03 |
| Newly | None | $25/mo (50 credits); top "Apex" tier price unpublished | Every paid tier; iOS submission runs through Expo's Launch flow, Android is an AAB you upload to the Play Console yourself | 2026-08-03 |
| Bilt | 3M AI tokens/month, no card; store publishing appears only on the paid plan's feature list | €25/mo (the advertised €15 is a first-month promotion) | Certificates, cloud builds, TestFlight and App Store submission per its docs; Android via Google Play service keys — under your own accounts | 2026-08-03 |
| Lovable | 5 build credits/day (capped at 30/month) plus small monthly Cloud and AI grants — web apps only | $25/mo Pro, billed monthly ($21/mo on annual billing) | None — web apps only, by Lovable's own docs, which point store-bound users at PWA installs and wrapper tools | 2026-08-03 |
| Bubble | Free projects can't deploy | $59/mo billed annually ($69 monthly) for the web + native mobile bundle (web-only Starter: $29/mo annual) | Mobile apps run on React Native (Bubble's own docs); you register your own Apple and Google developer accounts and submit through them | 2026-08-03 |
| FlutterFlow | Yes — 2 projects, web publishing, 10 "Lite" credits | $39/mo Basic, billed monthly (annual discount available) | Exports real Flutter code; its official MCP lists "handling App Store submissions" as out of scope — the store work is yours | 2026-08-03 |
| Glide | Yes — but the output is web apps (PWAs) | $199/mo Business, billed yearly (cheapest advertised plan; the old Explorer plan no longer shows a public price) | None — Glide says plainly that store publishing isn't supported | 2026-08-03 |
| Adalo | Yes — build only | $36/mo Starter, billed annually (annual is the page default) | Native publishing sits behind paid tiers | 2026-08-03 |
| Base44 | 25 message credits + 100 integration credits a month, up to 5 apps | $16/mo Starter, billed annually (yearly is the page default; annual saves 20%) | None advertised — web apps; no App Store / Google Play path on its pricing page or FAQ | 2026-08-03 |
| Replit | Free "Starter" plan: free daily Agent credits, publish 1 project | $25/mo Core billed monthly ($20/mo annual); Pro $100/mo | Builds mobile apps on Expo; guided App Store submission under your own Apple Developer account (its mobile guide doesn't cover Google Play) | 2026-08-03 |
| Appy Pie | No free plan — 7-day trial only | $16 per app/mo Basic, billed annually ($32 monthly) — Android only; iOS needs Platinum, $60 per app/mo billed annually ($120 monthly) | Paid tiers, per app, per platform | 2026-08-03 |
No builder on this list — Choicely included — puts an app in the stores for $0 total: Apple charges $99/year and Google $25 once for developer accounts, and Apple's Guideline 4.2.6 means you submit your own app whichever tool you use. The differences that matter are what the free tier lets you finish, and what the first paid dollar buys.
What it is: an AI app builder on top of a fan-engagement platform that has been shipping apps for brands like Eurovision, AFTV, Miss Universe and Banijay for years. You describe your app, the AI builds it, and you test it immediately on your own phone — scan a QR code or open a link and the real app runs in the Choicely app, with further edits appearing live as you make them.
Under the hood, Choicely's framework apps are native Swift (iOS) and Kotlin (Android), and the AI builds React Native components that run inside them. That's an architectural difference from the newer rivals below, not a superiority claim — they assemble real store binaries on Expo's toolchain; Choicely owns its entire build-test-publish loop, including its own APK and AAB builders (AAB being the format Google Play actually requires for new apps).
Pricing, verified on our own site (August 3, 2026): free plan with 300 credits a month (capped at 50 a day), no credit card, no trial clock. Publishing to the App Store and Google Play starts at Premium, $25/month billed monthly ($21/month if you commit annually); the Publish Assistant prepares your listings and walks the submission with you — you keep your own developer accounts and you submit, because Apple's rules require that of everyone.
Strengths: the free tier finishes a real app, and no verified path to both stores on this list is cheaper than $25/month — Newly matches the price but charges from day one. Deep built-in modules nobody else here has — voting, contests, rankings, fan engagement, live streaming. And it's the only builder on this page with a G2 profile at all: 11 reviews, 4.9/5 at last check.
Honest limitations: Choicely is shaped for content, community and fan-engagement apps. If your product is mostly custom backend logic, a developer platform will serve you better; if it's a web app, pick Lovable or Bubble instead — Choicely builds mobile apps, and pretending otherwise would make the rest of this list pointless.
Pick Choicely if: you want a real app in both stores on a small budget, or your app lives on audience engagement — voting, live video, fan communities — where the platform's track record is the actual product.
Three young companies now claim the same thesis this site is built on — describe an app, get a real iOS and Android app. To be clear about what they are, from their own documentation: all three generate React Native and build with Expo's toolchain, and all three produce genuine store binaries, not websites in a shell. All three publish under your own Apple and Google accounts (the same $99/year and $25 fees as everyone else), promise standard code with no lock-in, and build in the cloud so you don't need a Mac. Where they differ is below. One context note that is fair to state plainly: these are very small, very new companies — none of the three has a G2 or Capterra profile yet — so you're trading maturity for velocity whichever one you pick.
What it is: a prompt-to-app agent (CatDoes Inc., Delaware) that builds mobile apps with React Native + Expo and web apps alongside them. Its genuinely distinctive habit: the agent keeps working after you close the tab, so bigger builds finish without you babysitting them.
Pricing, verified 2026-08-03: free tier of 25 one-off credits, web deploy only, with a CatDoes badge — it cannot publish to the app stores. Core is $17/month billed yearly — yearly is the pricing page's default display, priced 16% below monthly billing. Store release starts at Starter, $42/month billed yearly. Credits are metered dynamically per request — CatDoes' own pricing FAQ says a request "can consume less than 1 credit ... or more" — so identical-looking prompts can cost differently. Code export is gated to the Pro tier at $168/month billed yearly.
Strengths worth conceding: the background agent, first-class web-and-mobile output from one prompt, and a backend included on the free tier — none of which Choicely's free tier matches. Limitations: the store path is the expensive part ($42/month, billed yearly, before a release), and the export gate at $168/month is the steepest in this list.
Pick CatDoes if: you want one prompt to produce both a web app and a mobile app, and you're happy building for a while before paying store-release prices — and committing to a year of them.
What it is: a Stockholm-built app agent (Small Scale Labs AB, $2M+ raised as of March 2026) that generates React Native on Expo SDK 54 and compiles real store binaries — APK/AAB builds in the product, iOS builds through Expo's cloud tooling. A naming note that matters: natively.dev redirects to Newly — it's the same React Native product renamed. A different, unrelated company at buildnatively.com sells WebView wrappers; don't confuse the two, and don't let anyone tell you Newly is a wrapper — it isn't.
Pricing, verified 2026-08-03: there is no free tier — entry is $25/month for 50 credits (one per message, simple Q&A aside), and the top "Apex" tier's price isn't published. Store publishing is included on every paid tier, but it isn't hands-off: iOS submission runs through Expo's Launch flow (you connect a GitHub repository and Expo's tooling carries the build to App Store submission), and Android is an AAB you build in Newly and upload to the Play Console yourself. APK builds for testing on a real Android device are included on every paid plan at no extra cost.
Strengths worth conceding: store compliance is what the whole product is built around — its site leads with "App Store & Play Store Compliance. Solved for you." and it generates store assets automatically, which is exactly the part that scares first-time publishers. (Note that the fully automated screenshot and metadata pipeline is promised on the upcoming Apex tier, which has no published price. The APK builder is genuinely useful too, though not unique — Choicely's publishing service has its own APK and AAB builders.) Limitations: no free tier means you pay before you know if the tool fits, and its published guides have run behind Apple's current requirements — worth remembering when its agent is your compliance source.
Pick Newly if: you know you're publishing, you'll pay from day one, and guided store compliance is the feature you'd pay for.
What it is: bilt.me, a six-person team in Tallinn (average age 21, launched on Product Hunt in December 2025) building React Native + Expo apps. Don't confuse it with Bilt Rewards, the US rent-rewards fintech — entirely unrelated company, and none of its reviews or funding belong to this Bilt.
Pricing, verified 2026-08-03: free tier of 3 million AI tokens a month, no card required — store publishing appears only on the paid plan's feature list, not the free tier's. The real paid price is €25/month; the advertised €15 applies to the first month only. Metering is by AI tokens, and one-time top-ups expire after 30 days whether you use them or not. Its docs describe the full App Store submission flow — certificates, provisioning profiles, cloud builds, TestFlight and App Store submission — with Android running through Google Play service keys, all under your own developer accounts.
Strengths worth conceding — and they're real: Bilt can sync an existing web app into a mobile app, import Figma frames directly, and ships a documented public MCP server (seven tools, with setup guides for Claude Desktop and Cursor). That MCP server is the most forward-looking feature anywhere on this list, Choicely included. Limitations: the expiring top-ups punish irregular usage, the free tier's publishing rights are answered only by omission, and the company is six people — brilliant, but a bus-factor question for an app you depend on.
Pick Bilt if: you're starting from Figma or an existing web app, or you want to drive your app builder from inside an AI assistant today.
What it is: the best-known vibe-coding product — describe what you want, get a working web app, iterate in chat. Pro is $25/month billed monthly ($21/month on annual billing), and the free tier gives 5 build credits a day, capped at 30 a month (verified 2026-08-03). Its own docs say Lovable builds web applications and "does not generate React Native projects", pointing store-bound users at PWA installs and wrapper tools like Capacitor — candour worth crediting. Strengths: speed to a working web product, a huge community, GitHub sync. Limitation: the App Store simply isn't where Lovable goes; wrapping its output risks Apple's Guideline 4.2. (If you have a Lovable app and want it in the stores natively, you can turn your Lovable app into a native app — that's a route we built.) Pick Lovable if your product is a web app. For that job it's the best tool on this page.
What it is: the veteran no-code platform for full web applications, now with native mobile bundled into paid plans — the Starter plan with web + mobile is $59/month billed annually, $69 monthly; a web-only Starter is $29/month annual (verified 2026-08-03). Bubble states plainly that its mobile apps run on React Native, and store submission runs through your own Apple and Google developer accounts. Free projects can't deploy. Strengths: the deepest logic, workflows and database of anything here. Limitations: the steepest learning curve on this list and an entry price 2–3x most rivals'. Pick Bubble if your app is really a complex product with intricate logic and you'll invest weeks, not an afternoon.
What it is: an AI app builder whose paid plans start at $16/month billed annually (Starter — the pricing page defaults to yearly, and annual billing saves 20%), the lowest monthly price on this list, and a name that surged in search interest in 2026. The free plan is real: 25 message credits and 100 integration credits a month, across up to 5 apps (verified 2026-08-03). What it builds are web apps — its pricing page and FAQ talk about publishing to the web, and no native-mobile or app-store path appears on either. Pick Base44 if budget rules and a web app is the goal.
What it is: an AI coding platform rather than an app builder — you end up with a real codebase you own. Core is $25/month billed monthly, $20/month on annual billing; Pro is $100/month (verified 2026-08-03; the old Teams tier is gone). It's one of the names AI assistants cite most for this category. Mobile is real but Apple-first: Replit builds mobile apps on Expo, and its guided publishing flow cloud-builds the app and delivers the build to App Store Connect under your own Apple Developer account — its mobile guide doesn't cover Google Play. Pick Replit if you're technical enough to want the code, and treat the store work as your own project.
What it is: a visual builder generating real Flutter code you can export and own — the classic choice when "no lock-in" is the requirement. Basic is $39/month billed monthly (an annual discount is offered), and the free tier builds up to 2 projects and publishes to the web (verified 2026-08-03). Its official MCP integration is refreshingly explicit that handling App Store submissions is out of scope — the store work stays yours. Strengths: genuine code ownership, a real developer ecosystem. Limitations: it's a design-and-build tool more than a prompt-to-app agent, and the publishing legwork is unassisted. Pick FlutterFlow if you want to graduate into real Flutter development with your app intact.
What it is: turns spreadsheets and data into polished apps — but its apps are progressive web apps, and Glide says plainly that store publishing isn't supported. That candour deserves credit. The catch is pricing: the cheapest advertised plan is now Business at $199/month billed yearly (verified 2026-08-03 — the old Explorer plan no longer shows a public price, whatever older listicles say). A free plan exists, web-only by nature. Pick Glide if your users are on laptops, a browser link is enough, and it's a company tool with a company budget.
What it is: one of the original no-code app builders. The free plan lets you build; native publishing sits behind paid tiers, from $36/month Starter, billed annually — annual is the pricing page's default (verified 2026-08-03). Strengths: approachable editor, years of tutorials and templates. Limitations: it predates the AI wave — you assemble screens rather than describe them — and the free tier stops well short of the stores. Pick Adalo if you prefer hand-assembling a simple app in a mature editor over prompting an agent.
What it is: a long-running app maker with a huge template catalog. The pricing needs stating carefully because it's the least comparable here: there is no free plan (a 7-day trial only), and the $16/month Basic tier is per app, billed annually ($32 billed monthly) — and Android only. iOS needs the Platinum tier at $60 per app/month billed annually, $120 monthly (verified 2026-08-03). Strengths: breadth — it makes many kinds of apps and has been doing so for years. Limitations: per-app, per-platform pricing compounds quickly, and "free" in its marketing means a trial, not a free plan. Pick Appy Pie if you want a template-first builder and you've done the per-app math for your case.
Every price and capability claim above comes from the vendor's own site — pricing pages and documentation, not third-party summaries — and carries the date we checked it. We re-verify quarterly, because this category moves: figures changed between our July checks and publish day, and one vendor's cheapest plan has disappeared from its public pricing entirely.
Three things we deliberately refused to print. First, a ratings column: the only third-party review profiles the new-wave startups have are Trustpilot pages with two reviews each — a sample of two is noise, and pretending otherwise would be manufacturing a winner. Second, vendors' self-reported ratings and "apps built" counts — no methodology, no third party, no print. Third, a single "credits" column: the metering systems here measure different things, so we described each one instead.
And the disclosure, again, plainly: Choicely wrote this and ranks first for the specific job of getting a real app into both stores cheaply — a claim you can check line by line in the table. For web apps, complex logic, Figma-first workflows, background agents, code export and internal tools, we named the rivals that beat us. If a vendor listed here believes a fact is wrong or stale, tell us and we'll check it against your site and fix it.
There's no single winner — it depends on the destination. For a real app in the App Store and Google Play on a small budget, Choicely (free to build, publishing from $25/month). For web apps, Lovable ($25/month). For complex logic, Bubble (web + mobile from $59/month annual). Among the newest prompt-to-app startups, Bilt stands out for Figma import and its MCP server, Newly for store compliance help, and CatDoes for web-plus-mobile output. All prices verified on vendor sites, August 2026.
Check what the free tier finishes, not whether one exists. Choicely's free plan (300 credits a month, no card) builds a complete app you can test on your own phone, with publishing at $25/month. CatDoes' free tier is 25 one-off credits, deploys to web only and cannot publish to stores — store release starts at $42/month, billed yearly. Bilt gives 3M free tokens a month but lists store publishing only on its paid plan. Newly has no free tier at all. Glide's free plan is real but makes web apps only. (Verified August 2026.)
The serious ones make real apps. Choicely's framework apps are native Swift and Kotlin hosting AI-built React Native components; CatDoes, Newly and Bilt generate React Native and compile real store binaries with Expo's toolchain; Bubble's mobile apps run on React Native by its own docs. The genuine webview problem lives elsewhere — website-wrapper services — and Apple's Guideline 4.2 targets those. One honest exception on this list: Glide, which says plainly its apps are progressive web apps and don't go to the stores.
No tool submits for you, and none should: Apple's Guideline 4.2.6 requires apps from app-generation services to be submitted by the provider of the app's content — you. What tools can honestly do is get you to the doorstep: Choicely's Publish Assistant prepares listings and walks the submission with you; Newly hands your build to Expo's launch tooling for App Store submission; Bilt runs certificates, cloud builds and TestFlight under your own accounts. Whatever you pick, budget Apple's $99/year and Google's one-time $25 developer fees.
Entry prices on this list run from $16–17/month on annual billing (Base44, CatDoes; Appy Pie is $16 per app, Android only) through $20–25/month (Choicely, Newly, Lovable, Replit; Bilt is €25) to $36–59/month (Adalo, FlutterFlow, Bubble) and $199/month (Glide Business, billed yearly). Watch the billing basis — several vendors' pages default to annual prices, one advertises a first-month promo as if it were the price — and add the store fees ($99/year Apple, $25 once Google) to any of them.
No. natively.dev redirects to Newly, which generates React Native and compiles real iOS and Android binaries — not webviews. The confusion comes from a name collision: a different, unrelated company at buildnatively.com does sell WebView wrappers. If someone tells you "Natively is a wrapper", they're talking about the other company.
Three recent arrivals (Bilt launched on Product Hunt in December 2025) building prompt-to-app agents on React Native and Expo. They ship real binaries and move fast, but they're early: none has a G2 or Capterra profile yet, and Bilt is a six-person team. That's a trade, not a verdict — you get the newest ideas (Bilt's MCP server, CatDoes' background agent) in exchange for short track records. If your app is business-critical, weigh platform maturity as heavily as the demo.
If the job is a real app in both stores, start where the free tier actually finishes something: describe your app in Choicely Studio, build it with 300 free monthly credits (here's what the free plan includes), and test it on your own phone in minutes — no card, no trial clock. When you're ready to ship, publishing starts at $25/month with our app publishing service — the Publish Assistant walks the submission with you.
Sources & disclosure: every price and capability above was verified on the vendor's own pricing page or documentation, and re-verified there on the day this article was published, August 3, 2026. Choicely publishes this article and appears in its own ranking, so we have a commercial interest in one of the tools compared — which is why we name, per entry, the cases where a rival is the better pick. We don't reprint vendors' self-reported ratings, and we don't print review-score comparisons built on two-review samples. Prices move in this category; we re-verify quarterly, and corrections are welcome from any vendor listed. Vendor pages checked: CatDoes · Newly · Bilt · Lovable · Bubble · FlutterFlow · Glide · Adalo · Base44 · Replit · Appy Pie · Choicely pricing · Apple's App Store Review Guidelines (4.2, 4.2.6) · Apple Developer Program · Google Play Console registration.