How far free goes
It depends on whether you want an assistant inside your editor or a model you call from code.
Editor assistants. GitHub Copilot Free is the only one whose official page gives a hard number: 2,000 code completions a month, no credit card, with Copilot CLI and agent mode (limited use; the FAQ mentions 50 chats). That suits an hour or two of coding a day; someone with an IDE open all day can burn through it in one to two weeks. Cursor’s free Hobby plan now just says “limited”; the 2,000-completion figure we recorded only appears on third-party sources. Claude’s free tier can explain or rewrite code you paste in, on a rolling 5-hour window, but it does not include Claude Code.
Models you call from code. Google AI Studio is the front door to free Gemini: starts on a free tier, no card, rate limits only (check aistudio.google.com/rate-limit for exact numbers). Groq’s free tier needs no card and sets per-model caps (gpt-oss: 30 requests a minute, 1,000 a day).
Building an app. Replit, Lovable and Bolt all have free plans, but going live is restricted: Replit publishes 1 project and takes it offline after 30 days, Lovable gives 30 build credits a month, Bolt 300,000 tokens a day. Fine for prototypes, not for a real product.
When to pay
- You hit a feature lock, not a quota (Copilot Free has no cloud agent or code review; Claude Free has no Claude Code).
- You run out of completions mid-month and code every day: Copilot Pro is US$10/month with unlimited completions; Cursor Pro is US$20/month.
- Your app must really go live: Replit Core US$20/month, Lovable Pro from US$25/month, Bolt Pro US$25/month.
Students do not need to rush: verified students get Copilot Student free, and AI Studio needs no student status. See the student resources page.
Common pitfalls
- Mixing up completion limits with chat limits: on paid Copilot, chat and agent usage draws on an AI credit pool.
- Assuming free-tier code is private: Google AI Studio free-tier content may be used to improve products, and GitHub’s FAQ says interactions may be used for training unless you turn it off.
- Reading an annual-billing monthly price as the monthly price (Replit shows US$17 annual-billing, US$20 month-to-month).
Quick answers
Is there a free AI coding tool good enough to start? Yes: Copilot Free for completions and AI Studio for API experiments, both without a card.
What should a hobbyist pay for first? Nothing until you hit a feature lock or run out of completions in the first half of the month.
Each tool page lists current limits and the date we last checked them; the full list is on the coding category page.
