Bolt Forge: Pricing, Lite Plan & 50x Promo

Bolt Forge runs Bolt.new on open-source AI models. See if it’s free, what Bolt Lite at $9 a month includes and how the 50x Pro promo works until Oct 14.

StackBlitz’s Bolt Forge is a new agent inside Bolt.new, the AI app and website builder, that builds only with open-source AI models. It launched on September 14, 2026 as a research preview. Individual Pro plans get up to 50x more Forge usage until October 14, and a new $9-a-month Bolt Lite plan is built on it.

What is Bolt Forge and why is it trending?

Bolt introduced Forge in a blog post by product marketing manager Donald Savard on September 14, 2026. Forge sits in the agent picker next to Bolt’s Standard and Max agents. Instead of premium paid models, it runs open models: GLM 5.3 Flash and GLM 5.3, with Kimi K3 and DeepSeek v4 Pro as experimental options.

Two things got builders talking. First, the price: Bolt says Forge gives individual Pro plans up to 50x more usage at no extra cost through October 14, and it launched Bolt Lite, a $9-a-month plan powered by Forge. Second, the trade: if you opt in, Bolt de-identifies your Forge build sessions and licenses them as training data to AI developers, starting with U.S. open-model lab Arcee AI, which is working on a trillion-parameter-class model.

Bolt also published a benchmark number. On its own Bolt Build Index, Forge’s open models scored 92.2 against 101.0 for the top paid model in Bolt, Claude Opus 5, or 91% of its score, as of September 2026.

How Bolt Forge works

Bolt’s blog lays out five steps:

1. Pick Forge: it appears as a third agent next to Standard and Max on every individual Pro plan.
2. Opt in: a one-tap consent screen explains the data trade before you start.
3. Build: Forge usage draws from one monthly bar with no daily limits. When it hits 100%, Bolt switches you back to Standard instead of charging an overage.
4. De-identification: Bolt says it strips secrets, sensitive data and personal information from shared sessions before anything leaves its infrastructure.
5. Licensing: the sessions go into datasets Bolt licenses to AI developers under a data license agreement. Arcee AI is the first.

Forge runs on Bolt’s own reserved hardware, and projects run in your browser on WebContainers, the StackBlitz technology Bolt is built on. Bolt says that’s what keeps Forge cheap enough to offer at this scale.

Bolt Forge Pricing (2026)

Bolt Forge isn’t sold on its own. You get it on an individual Pro plan or on Bolt Lite. We checked Bolt’s pricing page and Bolt Lite page on October 5, 2026.

Plan	Price	Forge access	Key limits
Free	$0	No. Free uses Bolt’s Standard mode	300K tokens a day, 1M tokens a month, Bolt branding, 10MB uploads
Bolt Lite	$9/month	Yes. Lite is built on Forge	Up to 50x more usage than Standard mode on the most efficient Forge model. Sign-ups close October 14, 2026
Pro	$25/month billed monthly, or $18/month billed yearly	Yes. Up to 50x Forge usage included until October 14	Starts at 10M tokens a month, no daily limit, rollover, custom domains, 100MB uploads
Teams	$30 per member a month billed monthly, or $27 billed yearly	No. Teams workspaces are excluded from Forge	Everything in Pro, plus centralized billing and admin controls
Enterprise	Custom	No. Enterprise workspaces are excluded from Forge	SSO, audit logs, SLAs and 24/7 support

Free plan: Bolt.new has a free plan, but it doesn’t include Bolt Forge. Bolt’s Lite page lists Free as Standard mode only. Forge starts at $9 a month with Bolt Lite.

What changes on October 14

October 14, 2026 closes Forge’s research preview window. The up-to-50x Forge allowance on Pro and the first Arcee AI training-data window both end that day, and Bolt Lite sign-ups close. Bolt says Forge then continues as an experimental open-model agent and that “what comes next depends on what the preview shows.” Anyone already on Bolt Lite keeps the plan at $9 a month for as long as they stay subscribed.

One inconsistency to note: Bolt’s blog and Lite page describe Pro as “$25 a month billed yearly,” but the pricing page shows $25 billed monthly and $18 billed yearly. Check the checkout screen before you pay.

Is Bolt Forge worth it? If you’re on a budget or build side projects, Bolt Lite at $9 a month is the cheapest way to use Forge, and the price stays locked if you join before October 14. If you need Bolt’s premium models for production work too, Pro gives you both.

Best use cases for Bolt Forge

• Prototypes and MVPs: draft, test and rebuild without spending premium credits.
• Side projects and classes: Bolt pitches Lite at students, weekend builders and side projects.
• Exploring ideas: brainstorms and experiments that would burn through Standard or Max usage.
• Trying open models: build with GLM 5.3, Kimi K3 and DeepSeek v4 Pro without setting them up yourself.

Limitations

• Experimental: Bolt says Forge’s open models are experimental. It recommends duplicating a project before switching it to Forge and keeping complex production work in Standard or Max.
• Your data trains models: using Forge means opting in to share de-identified prompts, code, files and edit histories, which Bolt licenses to AI developers. Sessions from the EEA, the UK and Switzerland aren’t used.
• Not on Teams or Enterprise: Forge is limited to individual plans.
• No PDF uploads: Forge can’t take PDF uploads yet.
• Uneven usage: Kimi K3 and DeepSeek v4 Pro use up your allowance faster than the GLM models.
• Unclear after October 14: Bolt hasn’t said what Forge allowance Pro plans get once the preview ends.

Bolt Forge alternatives

• Emergent: an AI agent platform that builds full-stack apps from prompts.
• Base44: a no-code AI app builder with a database, auth and hosting built in.
• Anything AI: builds mobile and web apps from plain-language prompts.
• Best AI agents for coding: our roundup of AI coding agents.

Bolt Forge is one of the cheapest ways to build with an AI app builder right now. Bolt Lite gives you Forge for $9 a month, and Bolt says its open models reach 91% of the top paid model’s score on its own benchmark, with up to 50x more usage than Standard mode.

The price comes from a trade. Using Forge means sharing de-identified build sessions that Bolt licenses for AI training, and Bolt itself says the models are experimental. Use Forge for prototypes, side projects and experiments, keep sensitive or production work in Standard or Max, and decide before October 14 if you want to lock in Lite at $9 a month.