# Base44 for Students: The 50% Discount, Its Limits and the Free Plan

> Base44 halves Starter or Builder for verified students and teachers for up to a year. How to claim it, Free plan credits and the Terms.

_Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/base44-for-students — The Professional's Toolkit · updated November 2026_

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Yes, Base44 has a student discount: 50% off the Starter or Builder plan for students, teachers and staff who verify a school email address. At that rate Starter costs $10 per month billed monthly for up to 12 months, or $8 per month for the first year billed annually, which by our arithmetic is $96 charged once. Builder costs $25 per month billed monthly, or $20 per month for the first year billed annually. The offer works once per account, only on your first paid subscription, and only if you claim it while still on the Free plan.

Three conditions weigh more than the price. The discount covers personal subscriptions, not team workspace billing. A later move from Starter to Builder is charged at the standard rate. And Base44's Terms allow paid accounts only for trade, business, craft or profession, not for personal, family or household purposes. Many students never need to pay. If coursework fits inside 25 message credits a month, at most 5 a day, the Free plan may be enough.


**50%** — Student and educator discount on Base44 Starter or Builder, claimed while on Free; first paid personal subscription only, up to 12 months



- **Starter or Builder** — The only Base44 plans the student discount covers
- **12 months** — Longest the discount lasts; then the plan renews at the standard rate
- **25 a month** — Free plan message credits, at most 5 a day


## Half price on two plans, with a clock attached

Eligibility is broad. Students, teachers and staff at K-12 schools, colleges, universities and other accredited institutions qualify, and Base44's changelog says its list of recognized institutions keeps growing across Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin America and US K-12 schools. The plan choice is narrow. Only Starter and Builder can be discounted. The discount lasts up to 12 months on a monthly plan and the first year on an annual plan. **Then the plan renews at the standard rate.** [1]

Budget for year two now. Starter then costs $20 per month billed monthly or $16 per month billed annually, and Builder $50 per month billed monthly or $40 per month billed annually. Choosing a term works the same at half price as at full price: monthly billing costs less in total only if you stop within nine months, and from the tenth month the annual fee wins. That fee is charged up front, and plans are non-refundable under Base44's Terms; its help center says Customer Care may approve a prorated refund, minus processing fees, for a mistaken purchase or special circumstances, as the [pricing breakdown](/articles/base44-pricing) explains.

Several actions end the discount for good. Canceling loses it, and it cannot be reactivated. It works once per verified school email and once per account. It cannot be stacked with a promo code; holding both, you get the academic discount at checkout. Plans bought through the Apple App Store are excluded. **An upgrade from discounted Starter bills Builder at the full rate.** That is the trap. A student who expects to need Builder features within the year should start on Builder.


> 💡 **Keep a personal login email:** Base44 verifies the school address with a 6-digit code, but the account itself can keep a personal email, so it survives when the school inbox closes.


## Claiming it in the right order

Order matters. The discounted rate only applies going forward, so a plan paid before verification is not refunded down to the student price. Anyone who has ever had a premium plan is out, and an account already on a paid plan cannot claim it. The claim runs inside the app as a short flow:

- Stay on the Free plan until the discount is active.
- Open the claim flow and enter your school email; the account itself can keep a personal address.
- Type in the 6-digit code Base44 sends to the school inbox.
- Answer the survey: role (staff choose Teacher), field of study, expected graduation date for students, and intended use.
- Only then pick Starter or Builder, billed monthly or annually.

Verification checks the school address against recognized academic domains such as .edu, .ac.uk and .ac.il. When a school's domain is missing, Customer Care can review it, and approved domains are usually added within 7 days. Students who prefer Student Beans get a separate flow on Base44's higher-education page, with the same school email check. Keep the personal login. A school inbox can close after graduation, and the account should outlive it.

## A semester on 25 credits a month

The Free plan is $0 and gives 25 message credits a month, at most 5 a day, plus 100 integration credits and up to 5 apps. Only the personal workspace created at sign-up gets those message credits, and the daily allowance resets at midnight in the owner's timezone or in UTC. Base44's help center estimates about 0.5 credit for a simple text or visual tweak, about 1 for a small feature, about 2 for a complex module and 3 to 4 for an app-wide change. A new app's first build takes about 1 credit.

The monthly total is the real limit. Five full days of building use up a month's 25 credits, and a group that leaves an assignment to the last evening gets at most 5 of them, perhaps two complex modules, before waiting for midnight. Spread the work across the month, not the week. Discuss mode costs about 0.3 credit per message, so settle what a screen should do there before Build mode spends a full credit. Manual visual edits, previewing and Resolve with AI cost nothing. Unused credits expire each month and failed output is not refunded; the [Free plan guide](/articles/is-base44-free) covers those rules.

Free apps publish on a base44.app address with hosting and SSL, enough for a demo link in a class submission. Code can be viewed but not edited on Free. Every public Free app also carries the Edit with Base44 badge, which lets anyone copy the app into their own account. Think about that before posting graded work. Making an app private and hiding the badge both need Starter or higher, as do a custom domain and in-app code edits.


> ⚠ **Public Free apps can be copied:** Every public app on the Free plan shows the Edit with Base44 badge, which lets anyone copy it into their own account; private apps and hiding the badge need the Starter plan or higher.


## Matching the plan to the assignment

| What the project needs | Lowest Base44 plan |
|---|---|
| A working demo on a base44.app link | Free |
| Private app, no badge, your own domain | Starter |
| Editing the generated code inside Base44 | Starter |
| Code synced to GitHub or exported as a ZIP | Builder |
| Payments, backend functions, connectors, workflows | Builder |
| Choosing the AI model instead of Auto | Builder |
| App Store and Google Play files (a wrapper app; your own Apple and Google developer accounts) | Builder |

A portfolio is the usual reason to want GitHub. Sync and ZIP export both start on Builder, and the exported code still runs on the platform's backend through its SDK, which cannot be self-hosted. The repository shows your frontend work, then, but it is not an app that runs on its own. For a computer science student judged on architecture, that matters. A design or business student shipping a prototype can mostly ignore it. Store files on Builder or higher also need your own Apple and Google developer accounts, and the store app is a wrapper around your web app that cannot sell digital goods. Builder's 250 message credits a month, against Starter's 100, matter more for a capstone than the code question does.


> 💡 **Settle features in Discuss mode:** Discuss mode costs about 0.3 message credit per message, so planning a screen there before a Build request stretches the Free plan's 25 message credits a month (at most 5 a day) further.


## Terms that hit students harder than other buyers

Individual customers must be at least 13 years old, or 16 in the EU, or older where local law sets a higher minimum. The professional-use rule is plain: a paid account may be used only for trade, business, craft or profession, while a Free account may serve business or personal purposes. **Read that clause before paying for a hobby project.** The Terms also forbid opening several free accounts to get around plan limits. A second sign-up for more free credits breaks them. [2]

Ownership and training sit side by side. Base44's student page says students own what they build and may modify, share or sell it. Its Terms also grant Base44 and its providers a perpetual, worldwide license to customer data and generated output, including to train its AI models. Only Enterprise workspaces are excluded from that training, and no other plan has an opt-out. Keep unpublished research, interview transcripts and anything under a confidentiality agreement out of your prompts.

Education majors building for children face one more rule. Base44's own guide to educational apps says an app serving children under 13 in the US must comply with COPPA, and that Base44 does not provide that compliance layer for you. Consent flows, data limits and parental notices are yours to design and test before any real pupil signs in. Build the demo with invented accounts. Real classroom data can wait until those flows exist.

## Campus programs and the founder route

Beyond the discount, Base44 runs a higher-education program that, by its own account in November 2026, includes more than 750 universities and 1,500 faculty. Educator partners get teaching materials, guest lectures, webinars and a dedicated partner to help plan courses, and requests for classroom visits are reviewed case by case. Students can join free webinars, hackathons, campus meetups and virtual workshops. Campus Impact Leaders help run events, and students can be paid for posts about Base44. [3]

Student founders have a stronger offer than half price. Base44 for Startups can grant independent founders the Builder plan free for one year, subject to approval, and founders backed by a partner fund or accelerator can get Pro free for a year instead. The separate Accelerator runs 12 weeks, takes 0% equity and requires the Base44 app to be core to the business. The [founder guide](/articles/base44-for-startups) covers both routes in detail.

Lovable offers a similar deal: verified students and teachers get 50% off Pro with 100 credits a month billed monthly, for up to 12 months. Lovable lists that Pro size at $25 per month billed monthly before the discount, against $20 per month billed monthly for Base44 Starter at its list price, or $10 per month billed monthly at the student rate. For a GitHub-synced portfolio, though, Base44 needs Builder, $25 per month billed monthly at the student rate, while Lovable's own pages put Git sync on every plan, Free included. Their credits are different units. Compare features, not credit counts.


## FAQ

**Can classmates work in my Base44 workspace without paying?**

Yes. Base44 prices per workspace, so invited members share the owner's plan and credits and need no paid plan of their own. The academic discount itself applies only to personal subscriptions, not to team workspace billing.

**Does Base44 offer a school-wide or non-profit license?**

The pricing page says education and non-profit pricing is handled case by case. Base44 does not publish non-profit discount terms.

**Can I move a discounted annual plan to monthly billing later?**

No. A yearly Base44 plan cannot be switched to a monthly one, and canceling to start over loses the student discount, which cannot be reactivated.

**What happens to my apps if I stop paying after the student year?**

Canceling takes effect at the end of the billing period. The workspace then moves to Free, which keeps up to 5 apps published (with more than 5 you choose which; the rest are unpublished, not deleted), custom domains stop working, payments and backend functions stop, and your data stays in the workspace.


## The bottom line

The student discount is worth claiming if you will pay at all, but order matters: verify the school email while still on Free, then buy. Pick the plan for the whole year up front, because moving from Starter to Builder costs full price. Many students can skip paying entirely, since the Free plan publishes working apps as long as the project fits 25 message credits a month, at most 5 a day, and a public app may be copied. Paid plans, remember, are for professional use only under the Terms.



## Sources

[1] Base44 docs: Academic discount — https://docs.base44.com/Account-and-billing/Student-discount (2026-11)
[2] Base44 Terms of Service — https://base44.com/about-us/legal/terms-of-service (2026-11)
[3] Base44 for Higher Education - University Partnerships — https://base44.com/highered (2026-11)
[4] Base44 pricing page — https://base44.com/pricing
[5] Base44 documentation — https://docs.base44.com/Account-and-billing/Credits
[6] Base44 Privacy Policy — https://base44.com/about-us/legal/privacy-policy