"Free" means very different things in AI tools. Some free plans renew every day, some every month, and some give you a one-time batch of credits that never comes back. If you're picking tools for real work, that difference matters more than the feature list.

Here are 10 AI tools developers actually use that have a usable free plan, with what the free tier really includes.

Coding assistants

1. GitHub Copilot Free

About 2,000 code completions and 50 chat requests per month. Enough to try it seriously on a side project. Heavy daily users will hit the chat limit first.

2. Cursor

Free plan with limited agent requests, and no card needed to start. Good for testing the AI editor workflow before deciding if it's worth paying for.

3. Replit

Free plan with limited AI chat time and up to 60 projects. Useful for quick prototypes you want to run in the browser.

App builders

4. Bolt.new

Around 300K tokens per day, capped at about 1M per month. You can build a small app in a session, but the monthly cap arrives fast if you iterate a lot.

5. Lovable

About 5 credits per day, up to 30 per month. Fine for a first version of an idea, tight for anything bigger.

6. v0

A small daily message limit. Best for generating UI components rather than full apps on the free tier.

General AI assistants

7. ChatGPT

Free plan with limits on uploads, image generation, voice and deep research. Still the easiest all-rounder for explaining errors or drafting docs.

8. Claude

Free plan with usage limits. Popular for reading long code files and writing clear technical explanations.

9. Gemini

Free plan with 15 GB of storage included. Handy if you already live in Google's tools.

Bonus: audio

10. ElevenLabs

About 10,000 credits per month (roughly 10 minutes of audio), but no commercial license on the free plan. Fine for testing voiceovers, not for client work.

What to watch on any free AI plan

  • Renewal: daily, monthly or one-time? One-time credits look generous but run out for good.
  • Commercial use: many free plans (especially audio, image and video) don't allow it.
  • Card required: some trials need a card and convert to paid automatically.
  • Watermarks: common on free image and video output.

I keep a longer free AI tools list with 24+ tools across chat, images, video, audio and coding, including each free plan's limits. Free tiers change often, so check each tool's pricing page before you rely on it.

Disclosure: I write about AI tools and SaaS pricing for PerksValley.