How to build a website with AI: the steps and what it really costs

What do you actually get when you describe your site to an AI?

A structured first draft, not a site that is ready to take customers. You write what you want, the tool returns pages, a layout and placeholder copy that you then rework. Both tools covered here bill that generation in credits. Framer gives you 500 AI credits on its free plan to try it out, and 1,000 AI credits a month on the Basic plan. Lovable gives you 5 build credits a day on its free plan, capped at 30 a month, plus 20 Cloud credits a month.

The slow part comes after the generation: replacing the copy, checking your legal pages, wiring up a form, picking a domain. If this way of working is new to you, our guide to vibe coding tools covers the general principle.

What steps take you from an idea to a live site?

Six steps, in this order. First, describe the project in one precise prompt: what you sell, which pages you expect, what tone you want. Second, generate and sort: keep the structure, throw out the copy. Third, fix the layout by hand in the editor. Fourth, load the real content, and here the caps matter: Framer Basic allows 30 pages, 2 CMS collections and 1,000 items, while Framer Pro goes up to 150 pages, 10 collections and 2,500 items. Fifth, connect the custom domain, which is included from Framer Basic and from Lovable Pro. Sixth, publish and watch the numbers: Framer provides 30 days of analytics on Basic and 90 days on Pro.

Site tool or app generator: which one do you need?

This is the real question, and you settle it before you pay. Framer is aimed at designers, freelancers and startups who want to design and publish a polished marketing site without a developer, with hosting, a CMS and SEO included, which is why we score it 4.5 out of 5 on features and 4 out of 5 overall. Lovable is aimed at founders, product managers and designers who want a web app or a prototype, with code editing, roles and permissions from the Pro plan.

In our reading, the dividing line fits in one sentence. If your site needs to present, reassure and get people to contact you, take a site tool. If it needs to create accounts, store data your users type in or run business logic, you are in app generator territory, and both the budget and the compliance questions change shape.

What do the published plans cost?

Here are the amounts as they appear on the official pages, with no recalculation.

Two billing details deserve attention. On Framer, the workspace owner is included but every extra editor is charged $20 a month, so a small content team costs noticeably more than the headline price. On Lovable, members are unlimited per workspace, but monthly credits expire after two months and are non-refundable. The plan-by-plan detail sits in our breakdowns of Framer pricing and Lovable pricing.

Where does your data live, and what does that change?

This is the point that separates the two tools most clearly. Framer states that its services run mainly on AWS in the United States, with additional regions in Europe and Asia-Pacific and more than 200 CloudFront edge locations, and mentions no region choice for the customer. The company lists ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2, with reports provided to Enterprise customers on request, along with GDPR and CCPA commitments and a DPA available. We score Framer 3 out of 5 on this criterion.

Lovable advertises regional hosting in the EU, the United States and Asia-Pacific, with data staying in the selected region by default, and publishes a DPA online. Its security page cites SOC 2, ISO 27001 and GDPR requirements. We score it 4.5 out of 5. One caveat matters: the company does not specify which plans can pick a region. In our reading, that is a question to get answered in writing before you sign if you handle data from European customers.

What should you check before you publish?

Four things, in the order they tend to catch you out. The domain: you need at least Framer Basic or Lovable Pro, since Framer’s free plan only gives you a Framer domain. The vendor badge: Lovable removes the Lovable badge from Pro. The volume: Framer Basic caps out at 50 GB of bandwidth and 30 pages, which is fine for a marketing site and thin for a catalog. And credit usage, which on Lovable varies with the complexity of each request, so a fixed monthly budget is hard to pin down in advance; the Pro plan offers tiers up to 10,000 credits.

Add one last check that has nothing to do with the tool: read the generated copy line by line. A public site commits you to your legal pages, your prices and your commercial claims.

Which one should you pick for your situation?

You are a freelancer or a solo operator who wants a credible site without a developer: Framer Basic at $10 a month billed yearly covers it, with hosting, CMS, SEO and analytics included, as long as you stay the only editor.

You are an agency or a marketing team that ships often: Framer Pro at $30 a month billed yearly adds redirects, a staging environment and branching with previews, all useful once several people edit the same site. Budget $20 a month for each extra editor.

You are a founder or product manager and your project looks like an app: Lovable Pro at $25 billed monthly, $21 billed yearly, gives you custom domains, code editing and roles, with unlimited members. We score it 4.4 out of 5 overall, including 5 out of 5 for ease of use.

You have a compliance or internal control requirement: Lovable Business at $50 billed monthly, $42 billed yearly, adds SSO, internal publishing, protected preview links and your data excluded from model training by default. It is the only one of the two tools here that advertises a choice of hosting region, which carries weight if your users are European. The other options in this space are grouped in our vibe coding section.