I started using Lovable to vibe code in spring 2025 after hearing about it on Greg Isenberg’s podcast. Since then I’ve built multiple apps and websites, most of which aren’t really being used, but a few that have made it to production and have become interesting marketing projects.
A few days ago I tallied what my credit spend was on Lovable, and it was over a thousand dollars over the past year. I’m sure some of you have spent way more than that. And remember, I’m not counting other builders I’ve used such as Replit, and of course ChatGPT Codex and Claude Code.
After making Claude Code my full time driver, I missed being spoiled but the instantaneously rich designs and seemingly magical aesthetics Lovable created for my personal projects. (For work, my marketing team uses Lovable religiously – and in just one week we launched seven full-on websites covering various brands and entities within our group of companies. More on this another time.)
I’ve always had a few projects running on my own personal Lovable, and that’s when I pieced things together. And this should’ve been obvious from the very beginning.
Lovable < — > GitHub Repo < — > ChatGPT Codex or Claude Code
When I first discovered this, I was like… wow, isn’t this illegal?
And I’m sure if you found this article you’re like – hey, you should’ve known that from the start!
Yes, I’m using ChatGPT Codex and/or Claude Code to make code updates on my projects, sending them back to the repo and publishing on Lovable. This has saved me a lot of Lovable credits when code changes are handling functionality issues or new features.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Lovable. For marketing projects I typically start the project in Lovable and it’s a very efficient way to work when you want to turn around something very fast, or if the project is one of many marketing initiatives you’re launching.
Lovable also saves you on paying for multiple Supabase databases if you’re running mini to medium sized projects and need all of them to have a database. Since Lovable itself is integrated with Supabase, setup is easy, and you manage everything in one place, without having to pay for each additional database (though it does use up your credits depending on how much juice the project consumes).
I have also transferred projects out of Lovable when they’ve past the MVP or incubation stage and I feel confident enough to run them as full on projects.
I wish I had discovered this sooner. :)