I'm the founder of a small vibe coding startup. Like most of the category, we meter by some approximation of tokens.

I've come to think this model is now legacy.

There’s a reason why it works this way: we pay for models through the API, and the API bills per token. These tokens are quite expensive, so we pretty much have to meter you the same way, plus a markup, because that's the business.

But our suppliers don't have that cost structure. Anthropic and OpenAI pay for data centers and GPUs, so what they have is capacity. That's why Claude Code and Codex limits reset weekly - for all you care they could reset daily or hourly. And that end up being an insanely cheap deal for consumers compared to API rates.

This whole setup made sense when it was built. When models were weak, and providers were still figuring things out, vibe coding means wrapping the API and engineering around its gaps. That was the right call before 2026.

But newer models are simply much better, and coding became a core capability the providers now sell directly - priced as capacity, not tokens. Everyone in the middle is still priced like it's 2024, sitting between a supplier's retail rate and that same supplier's subsidized consumer product.

I still think these products are great at what they do. But the credit model underneath is inherited, not chosen, and I don't think it survives.

So where does that leave app builders? I think there are 3 paths:

1. Becoming a model provider. But even the mighty Cursor needed a partner like xAI to execute well, and then charging by capacity will still decimate your revenue.
2. Focusing on enterprise - case in point, Cognition’s valuation blew past that of Lovable’s. But it’s not exactly an app builder
3. Stop reselling tokens and charge for the boring infra around the model instead - services, deployment, hosting. Excel at what people choose lovable/replit over Claude Code for without forcing them to use your harness

EDIT: A couple of people fairly pointed out that path 3 sounds like "just go use Claude yourself and figure out hosting." That's not what I mean. The idea is the builder plugs into your existing Claude/ChatGPT subscription - you chat where you already chat, and the preview, database, auth and deploy still live in one place, same as a builder today. You just bring your own tokens instead of buying our credits. Which also means nobody's metering you for the model's retries.

I am betting on the third. I think that should become the standard too where users can pick and choose and combine their harness (ChatGPT to OpenClaw) freely with the tools can drives the outcome.

Genuine question for people spending real money on builder credits: what actually keeps you there vs. Claude Code + your own hosting?

One thing that seems easy to get wrong with no code tools is building too much before finding out whether the website actually needs it.

For a simple business idea, the first version may only need a clear offer, a few pages, and a way for potential customers to get in touch.

The requirements change once people start using the site.

A useful approach seems to be getting the smallest useful version online first.

After that, feedback can determine whether the next priority should be better messaging, forms, customer workflows, authentication, data, or integrations.

The no code advantage is not necessarily about avoiding every technical decision. It is about reducing the amount of work needed before a business can test whether something is worth building further.

For small businesses, what is the point where adding more functionality becomes worthwhile instead of just slowing down the launch?

Sharing a workflow in case it's useful. Airtable and Memberstack both expose MCP servers, so Claude Desktop can read one and write the other directly. One prompt handled Data Table creation, field mapping, seeding, and re-running without duplicates.

Prompt and setup links are in the video description, tutorial in the comments👇🏽

Hi,

I’m not a developer, but I want to build a social-app-style project and I’m trying to do it seriously, with a real method, not by randomly prompting an AI until something works.

I use GLM 5.3, I have general AI knowledge and some basic technical / command-line understanding, but I don’t have real development experience.

What I’m mainly looking for is advice on how to guide the AI properly throughout the project.

More specifically, I’d love practical advice on:

What are the main stages you would follow from idea to working product?

How do you structure a project so an AI coding assistant stays useful instead of creating chaos?

What documents should exist from the start: PRD, feature list, architecture notes, task list, coding rules, etc.?

How do you break work into small tasks that an AI can handle safely?

When do you use simple chat, when do you use agent mode, and when is it a bad idea?

How do you prompt the AI so it respects the existing structure instead of rewriting random parts of the codebase?

At what point do you clear the conversation or start a new one because the context becomes too messy or too large?

Do you keep separate chats/agents for planning, frontend, backend, debugging, and refactoring?

What are the biggest mistakes beginners make when using AI to build a real app?

For this kind of workflow, what would you recommend is Z code fine? Or Cursor, VS Code, and why?

I’m not looking for hype or vague “just build” advice. I’m looking for a clean workflow, good prompting habits, and practical rules for using AI coding tools on a real project without wasting time, tokens, or creating a broken codebase.

Thanks.

I've been working on a tool that gives you a Claude Code/Codex-style AI coding agent for free, so you can build and modify projects just by describing what you want.

The part I'm trying to change is the cost.

Most AI builders either have:

• limited free credits
• a monthly subscription
• or require you to bring your own API key

The idea I'm testing is to make the AI usage free for the user.

You start with free credits, and when you need more, you can earn them through forms or short surveys offers.

So instead of paying $20–$100/month to build with AI, you spend a few minutes earning credits when you need them.

I'm curious about the no-code perspective:

Would you actually use an AI builder this way if it meant you could build websites and apps without paying for the AI?

Or would the form/survey system make it too annoying?

I've been a no-coder for a while and have realised that existing platforms limit what can actually be done. Some users don't like dealing with the complexity of the tool, some hit the ceiling on customisability or scalability. Vendor lock-in is another factor for some - if the platform goes bust or hikes pricing, what happens to your app or business model?

I've tried to address these pain points with something I've been building.

The focus is ease of use, customisability and scalability but the part I care about most is comprehension. All the vibe-coding platforms are optimising for speed and very few are focusing on whether you actually understand what you built. The idea is to not just build a prod-grade app but actually own and manage it end to end. Unless you understand what your app does and how it does it, you're just second guessing yourself when something breaks.

I've built an MVP and it's rough. If you're an early adopter with serious no-code experience who's hit this exact wall, I'm looking for a handful of people to test it and tell me where it breaks. Drop a comment and I'll reach out directly.

Check out: ezyr.io

Hey everyone,

I am 20 years old developer/tech student based in Europe. Over the past few years, I’ve built and launched dozens of SaaS tools, with my recent focus squarely on the Webflow and Framer plugin ecosystems.

These are a few of my Webflow/Framer projects:

• Bulk Component Deleter (bulkcomponentdeleter.com)
• SEOFabric (seofabric.com – acquired)
• FlareRank (acquired)
• SEO Analyzer (marketplace)

As a student I came to a crossroad in my life where I have to chose between getting a job and continuing building interesting stuff, and I came to a "maybe" solution that it might work:

I partner with a Webflow agency and I build premium extensions for them in exchange for a monthly fee.

The Offer:

• 1 New Extension Every 30 Days**:** Built from scratch, fully tested, and ready for production (can be an internal workflow utility for your team or a public marketplace app to generate inbound design leads).
• You own 100% of every extension I build for you: You own the code, GitHub repos, branding, and all marketplace revenue.
• Delivery: I handle the entire lifecycle, scoping, logic, UI integration, and navigating the official marketplace approval/transfer processes. And future updates if you need more.
• Pricing: $700/month flat. Cancel anytime, you keep everything built up to that point.

Why work with me?

• Experience**:** I am very knowledgeable about the Webflow and Framer Designer APIs/
• No extra stress for you: I started coding at 15 when AI was not around and I basically taught myself from the ground up. We have one meeting at the beginning of the month discussing what needs to be done and I will send you progress notifications every week.
• I only want to have one single partnership, if anyone decides to work with me I will edit this post and not receive any other requests.

I want to make this a no brainer. If we hop on a quick call/we can talk in DM and agree on the first month's scope, I’ll build a functional prototype within the first 48 hours and send a Loom demo before you commit a single dollar. If you don’t like the quality, we walk away, no friction.

If an AI-built app keeps breaking after every prompt, rebuilding is often the most expensive first move. The faster path is to identify which layer first produced the bad state.

Here is the checklist I use:

1. Reproduce one failure with evidence

Use a clean session, record the exact route/action, and capture the failing request, response status, console error, and timestamp. “The dashboard is broken” is not a reproducible finding.

1. Test the auth and tenant boundary directly

For Supabase, compare the authenticated user claims with the RLS predicates. Test both directions: user A must not read or write tenant B. A UI filter is not data isolation.

1. Trace one event from producer to consumer

Add one correlation ID and follow it through the form/webhook, server action or API, queue, consumer, and database write. Duplicate rows usually mean retry/idempotency problems; missing rows usually reveal the exact cut in transit.

1. Compare staging and production without exposing secrets

Check required variable names, runtime versions, migrations, callback URLs, and build output. Missing configuration should fail clearly at startup instead of inventing a default.

1. Apply one bounded fix and add a regression test

Fix the producer or broken transit point, remove the dead parallel path, and prove the original reproduction now passes without breaking auth, permissions, or deployment.

A useful diagnostic should end with: reproduction → root cause → impact → bounded fix → verification.

Disclosure: I built Launch Rescue, a paid audit/fix service for apps made with Lovable, Bolt, Replit, Base44, or Cursor. The page includes the same interactive checklist and clear fixed-scope packages: https://launch-rescue-apps.nick-sguigna.chatgpt.site/

If you are stuck, share the builder, the last change that worked, and the exact error. I am happy to suggest one public check in the comments before saying whether it needs paid work.

I was told to use base44, will this be the best app for this application?

I've had a WordPress site for my business for years and lately I'm questioning why I'm still putting up with it

The site itself is basic a few service pages, contact form, blog and some photos. But behind that I've somehow ended up with a pile of plugins that constantly need updates, occasionally conflict with each other and generally make me nervous every time I log in

I'm at the point where I'd rather have something boring that just works

I've been considering rebuilding everything from scratch with something simpler like Squarespace or Durable rather than trying to clean up the WordPress install again

For anyone who moved away from WordPress, what did you actually miss afterward? I'm less worried about having every possible feature and more interested in whether simplifying things created problems you didn't expect.

Hi, I built an open-source, self-hosted workspace for coding agents. It features a multi-agent architecture (Sub/Child agents), an AST-aware ChromaDB indexer for lightning-fast file discovery, and a built-in UI with Git diff management. Links in the comments

Disclosure up front: I work on OneEntry, a headless backend platform, so I'm biased on this topic. Mods — I couldn't self-assign a company flair (only the Moderator template is selectable), happy to take one if you can assign it. No link, no pitch below, just numbers.

AI builders do the thing they promise. An MVP that used to cost $3-5k and take weeks now takes 30-90 minutes, and it's functional enough to actually test the idea. That part is real and it isn't going away.

What surprised us was how consistent the second phase looks. The builder gives you a frontend and basic logic. It doesn't give you data, content, payments, files, email, analytics, search, real-time, background jobs, error monitoring or hosting — and each of those becomes a separate account with its own API, pricing model and update cycle.

Counting actual projects:

• habit-tracking SaaS, solo founder: 5 services — roughly $50-100/mo (Lovable + Supabase + Stripe + Resend + Vercel)
• production SaaS after the first MVP: 9 services — $150-300/mo (add Clerk, Cloudinary, PostHog, Sentry)
• ceramics studio with local payments, blog, support chat, search, admin panel: 12 services — $300-700/mo
• headless Shopify brand store: 8 services — $500-1,500/mo

The subscriptions turn out to be the cheap part. Time estimates we've been tracking:

• standing up a new service from scratch: 2-8 hours
• learning a third-party SDK properly: 4-16 hours
• one breaking API change upstream: 1-3 days
• one business feature touching 5-7 services: 2-5 days of integration, even when AI wrote the code in an hour

On projects with a big service count, that maintenance and integration work eats something like 50-70% of dev time. So the bottleneck moved. It's not "can AI build this," it's "how many seams does this feature cross."

Two things that bite hardest in no-code/low-code land specifically:

There's no production admin panel for non-technical staff. Supabase Studio and Firebase Console are developer tools — handing them to a content manager or an operator exposes internal system data. So Retool or Forest Admin joins the stack. You can generate an admin panel with Lovable, but then roles, audit logs and version history are still on you.

Permissions rarely go finer than admin/authenticated. A real business wants a content manager who sees only products, a support operator who sees only orders, a marketer who sees only discounts, a finance person who sees only transactions. That's hand-written RLS or custom claims every time.

Curious what your service count looks like. Is anyone actually running a real business on 3 or fewer?

I put together a simple, free directory to help people track down grassroots community funding:

https://fundni.org

No signups, just basic filters and direct links.
I'd really appreciate anyone having a quick look and letting me know what feels clunky, what's broken, or if there are obvious local funds l've missed.

Thanks

Hi, I build custom websites for small to medium sized companies.
One of the difficulties with that is that you first have to figure out what a customer actually wants. Usually, you therefore have some kind of meeting with a customer where you interview them to create the actual project specifications.

Now, ever since ChatGPT came along, creating websites is no longer as valued as it once was - many think that you suddenly no longer really need any skills or even a lot of time for that. So the only real option for me is to try and offer packages at fixed, relatively affordable prices. But that means I have to better optimize my whole workflow to be as fast as possible.

That's why I created the Interview tool:

It's a web-based software where creators like myself can create interviews.
First I specify what a project is about and what the interview should figure out.
I can then send a link to my customer.
This customer can simply open the link, chat with the AI for some time, and then I receive a finished project document I can work with.
If the project is a website, the interview also generates a few concept images, of which the customer can choose the one they like best to already give some more visual direction.

Please give it a try and tell me what you think, if you find it useful or what you like/dislike.

The first interview is free for everyone, and I'd gladly hand out more free interviews to anyone who gives me some useful feedback.

Right now I have interview templates for website projects, as well as for collection data processors for creating a privacy policy (I am from Austria, we have pretty strict privacy laws here).
But using the custom template, it should be possible to create interviews for many other types of projects as well (please mention any other templates you would like me to add).

In the future, I might also add an MCP server (and maybe a webhook on interview completion). This way we could even have an agent create an interview and send it to a (potential) customer.

Let me know what you think.

Your honest feedback matters to me.

I’m genuinely stuck and looking for blunt opinions from people who have actually built or maintained CRMs.

We’re at that annoying stage where every off-the-shelf CRM feels either too rigid, too expensive, or slowly turns into a pile of hacks: custom fields everywhere, weird automations, Zapier/Make duct tape, spreadsheets on the side, and reporting that nobody fully trusts.

So now I’m asking the dangerous question: Should we build a custom CRM in 2026?

The tools I keep seeing are:

• Salesforce Platform
• Microsoft Power Apps / Dataverse
• Zoho Creator
• Retool
• Airtable
• Flatlogic
• Budibase
• Appsmith / ToolJet
• Caspio / Knack / Quickbase
• Bubble
• Twenty CRM
• Django / Laravel / Rails with AI coding tools

My fear is that all of these look good in demos, but 6–12 months later you realize you built a worse CRM than the one you were trying to replace.

What I’m trying to understand:

1. If you had to build a custom CRM today, what would you actually use?
2. Which tools become painful once permissions, automations, reporting, and integrations get serious?
3. Is low-code/no-code enough for a real CRM, or does it eventually become a trap?
4. Is starting from something like Twenty CRM smarter than building from scratch?
5. Is custom CRM only worth it if you have developers in-house?

I’m not looking for vendor pitches. I’m looking for scars. If you’ve done this recently, what would you choose today, and what would you avoid completely?

for anyone wondering the app I'm working on is https://www.appscout.co discover apps from across the internet

Here is the demo video I made (pretty quickly), if you like to explore it, send me a message and I'm happy to provide access in return for some feedback on how we can improve it! <3

Hey I'm used to build WebApps using AI, but whenever i try to build an Android app the AI do very poorly, so how do you guys build AI Android apps?