Which AI app builders charge the people who only use the apps

When you price an app platform, the number on the pricing page usually describes the person who builds. But in most companies, the builders are a handful of people and the users are everyone else: technicians, drivers, store staff, nurses, volunteers. If the platform charges for each person who opens an app, the real bill is set by your headcount, not your ambition.

This guide lists which platforms charge the people who only use the apps, how much, and what they meter instead when they do not. Every price is as listed on each vendor's pricing page or documentation in October 2026. Where a vendor's page lists no per-user charge, we say exactly that, because "not listed" and "free" are different promises.

Builders vs app users: why the difference matters

Two kinds of people touch an internal tool:

• Builders create and change the tool.
• App users open it to do their work: log a job, approve a request, check a list.

In most companies, a few people build and many more use. Pricing that charges both groups the same way makes the cost of a tool grow with every person you add, which works against the whole point of building it. Teams end up rationing access, sharing logins, or keeping the old spreadsheet running for the people they could not afford to license.

Platforms that charge app users

Microsoft Power Apps

Microsoft's pricing page is direct: the people who run the apps need a license too. As listed in October 2026:

• Power Apps Premium: $20.00 per user per month, paid yearly.
• Pay-as-you-go: $10 per active user per app per month, according to Microsoft Learn. An active user is someone who opens the app at least once in the month.

Pay-as-you-go is per app, so one person who opens three apps in a month counts three times. Microsoft Learn also notes that the Power Apps per app plan has not been available to new customers through some purchasing channels since January 2, 2026, so check which options your reseller still offers.

Google AppSheet

AppSheet's pricing page lists $5 (Starter), $10 (Core) or $20 (Enterprise Plus) per user per month, and says every app user, including guests, needs a license. The important exception for many buyers: AppSheet Core is included in most paid Google Workspace plans, so a Workspace company may already have Core licenses for its staff. Check what your Workspace plan includes before you budget.

Retool

Retool prices builders and internal users separately. As listed in October 2026, the Business plan is $50 per builder and $15 per internal user per month billed annually, or $65 and $18 month to month. External users, such as customers or vendors who log in, are free up to 50 on Business, then $4 to $8 per user per month billed annually.

Softr

Softr charges by app users in a different way: each plan caps the number of people who can log in to your apps, and extra app users are billed monthly on Pro and above, according to its pricing page. As listed in October 2026, Pro is $99 a month billed yearly ($119 monthly) and Business is $329 a month billed yearly ($395 monthly).

Glide Classic

Glide Classic Business starts at $199 a month billed yearly with 30 users included, then $5 to $6 per additional user, plus 2 cents per update over 5,000 a month, as listed on Glide's Classic pricing page. Ask Glide which actions count as updates for your app, because the update charge means a busy app can cost more even with the same number of users.

Note that GlideOS, Glide's newer product, is separate from Glide Classic with its own plans: GlideOS starts at $25 a month and Pro is $125 a month starting at 5 members. Make sure you are reading the right product's pricing.

Platforms where viewers are free but editors pay

Work management tools such as Airtable and monday.com are not AI app builders, but many teams use them as one. Both split users by what they do:

• Airtable: Team is $20 and Business is $45 per seat per month billed annually ($24 and $54 monthly). Read-only collaborators are free. Anyone who edits data needs a seat.
• monday.com: work management is $9, $12 or $19 per seat per month billed annually, plans start at 3 seats, and viewers are free.

That works well for dashboards people only look at. It works less well for a crew app, where the whole point is that technicians and store staff enter data, which makes them editors.

Platforms with no per-user charge listed

AI app builders and some visual builders meter something other than headcount. As of October 2026, none of the following lists a per-user charge for people who only use the finished apps:

• Lovable: no per-seat charge for builders either. Workspaces support unlimited members and plans are priced by credits. Lovable's pricing page says credits pay for building, hosting with Lovable Cloud and AI features inside your apps from one balance, so a busy app does draw on credits.
• Bolt: Pro is $25 a month starting at 10M tokens; Teams is $30 per member per month, and tokens are not shared between members.
• v0: Plus is listed at $30 per user per month, and Business at $100 per user per month with $30 of included monthly credits per user. Builders pay per user; app users have no listed charge.
• Replit: Pro has no per-user fees and supports up to 15 builders on one plan, according to Replit's docs.
• Base44: $16 to $160 a month billed annually across Starter, Builder, Pro and Elite, priced by message credits.
• Bubble: priced per app, not per seat, with workload units as the meter.

The trade-off: these platforms meter building, usually in credits or tokens that every AI attempt uses up, including the AI's fixes for its own mistakes. App users may not cost a seat, but the bill is harder to forecast.

The shared-login trap

When every app user costs money, teams find workarounds, and the workarounds cost more than the licenses.

The most common one is the shared login. One "crew" account goes on a tablet in the truck or a phone in the warehouse, and everyone uses it. It looks like savings. In practice it means:

• No record of who did what. When a job report is wrong or a return is approved by mistake, the log says "crew," not a name.
• No clean offboarding. When someone leaves, they still know the password. Changing it locks out everyone else.
• No roles. Everyone on the shared account sees what the most trusted person needs to see.
• No trust in the data. Managers stop relying on a tool when they cannot tell who entered what.

The second workaround is keeping the old process alive for the people who are not licensed: the paper form, the group text, the spreadsheet on the office computer. Now the company runs two systems, and someone re-types data between them.

Both workarounds come from the same place: pricing that turns access into a cost. When you compare platforms, count what it would cost to give every person their own login, because that is the only version of the rollout that works.

Side by side

A worked example

Here is an example with list-price arithmetic only, to show how the models diverge. A 43-person HVAC company has 3 people who will build tools (the office manager, the dispatcher and the controller) and 40 technicians and staff who will only use them. They want three apps: a dispatch board, a job report with photos and a parts request flow.

• Power Apps Premium: if all 43 people hold Premium, 43 times $20.00 is $860 a month, paid yearly. On pay-as-you-go instead, 40 technicians opening all three apps in a month is 120 active user and app pairs at $10, or $1,200 a month before the builders.
• AppSheet Core: 43 times $10 is $430 a month, unless the company's Google Workspace plan already includes Core.
• Retool Business: 3 builders at $50 plus 40 internal users at $15 is $750 a month billed annually, or $915 month to month.
• Airtable Business: the 3 builders at $45 is $135 a month, but technicians who submit job reports by editing records are editors, and 43 seats at $45 is $1,935 a month.
• FORGE: 3 builders at $49 is $147 a month, with 3 builds each included. The 40 technicians are free.

Your numbers will differ by plan, discounts and what counts as a user on each platform, so treat this as a way to ask the right questions, not a quote.

How to choose

1. Count both groups. Write down how many people will build and how many will only use the tools, now and in a year.
2. Ask the exact question. "Do people who only open the app need a license or count toward a cap?" Get the answer in writing.
3. Check what makes someone an editor. On seat-based tools, submitting a form may be free while editing a record is not. Map your real workflow to the rules.
4. Look for activity meters. Per-update charges, workload units and credits can grow with usage even when users are free.
5. Check your existing suite. If you already pay for Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, find out what app licenses you already own.
6. Model a full rollout. Price the version where every technician, driver or store employee uses the tool, not the pilot.
7. Ask who pays for failed builds. On credit-based tools, the AI's mistakes draw on your balance.

How FORGE handles it

FORGE was priced around a simple belief: rolling a tool out to the whole crew should never be a budget decision.

People who only use the apps are free, whether that is four people or four hundred. You pay $49 a seat a month for each person who builds, with 3 builds included. A change is a small fraction of a build and only counts when something actually changes. Extra builds come in packs of 10 for $150. A build FORGE fails is free, owners get alerts at 80 and 100 percent, and nothing ever bills by itself. Your team can share one company pool of builds or give each seat its own allowance.

App users still get a real, governed experience. Every app lives inside your company, people join by invite only, and each person's role (owner, admin, builder or app user) decides what they can see and change. There is a complete record of who did what. A panel of top AI models plans each tool, a dedicated AI crew builds it, and every piece is checked for quality and security before it is saved. Most teams have their first real tool the same day, and our team onboards you ourselves, starting with a workflow workshop.

To see what your own rollout would cost, talk to us or check pricing.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. Microsoft Power Apps pricing
2. Microsoft Learn: pay-as-you-go meters
3. Microsoft Learn: pricing and billing SKUs
4. Google AppSheet pricing
5. Retool pricing
6. Softr pricing
7. Glide Classic pricing
8. GlideOS pricing
9. Airtable plans
10. monday.com pricing
11. Lovable pricing
12. Bolt.new pricing
13. v0 pricing
14. Replit Pro plan docs
15. Base44 pricing
16. Bubble pricing