Out of Bolt tokens
Out of Bolt tokens? What stops, and how to keep building
Running out in the middle of a project is frustrating, especially when you are one change away from done. Here is exactly what stops and what keeps working, how the allowance comes back, how to make it last longer, and how to keep building the same project without Bolt tokens.
How Bolt meters AI
- Free
- 1 million tokens a month, at most 300,000 a day
- Pro
- From 10 million tokens a month, with no daily limit
- Resets
- Free on the 1st of the month; paid plans on your renewal date
- Rollover
- Paid tokens stay valid for two months. Free tokens don't roll over
What happens when your tokens run out
- You can't prompt Bolt until your tokens reset or you add more.
- You can still edit the code by hand in Code view, which uses no tokens.
- The Publish and Update buttons use no tokens. Asking Bolt to publish in the chat does.
- Hosting has limits of its own: a site that reaches its hosting limit stops showing publicly until usage resets. Bolt's documentation doesn't say what happens to a published site when tokens run out.
Ways to get more tokens in Bolt
Wait for the reset
On Free, the daily limit comes back the next day and the monthly one on the 1st. On a paid plan, tokens renew on your renewal date.
Move up a tier
Bolt says a higher Pro tier is the cheapest way to get more tokens.
Reload tokens
Reloads are only offered on the highest monthly Pro tier and on annual Pro plans. Reloaded tokens don't expire; the price is shown on the reload screen.
Make your Bolt tokens last longer
This is Bolt's own advice, from its documentation:
- Use Plan mode to think a change through: it uses fewer tokens because it doesn't write code.
- Pick a lighter agent than Max for simple changes.
- Point the prompt at the files that matter.
- Undo through Version history and make small fixes yourself in Code view: neither uses tokens.
- Turn connectors on only when you need them, don't loop on automatic fixes, and split very large files.
Or keep building on the AI plan you already pay for
If you already have a Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor plan, you are paying for a coding agent that can do this work. A Bolt project is ordinary code that belongs to you, so you can move it to your own GitHub and let that agent carry on, with no tokens to run out of.
- BoltConnect the project to GitHub
- Your GitHubThe code, with its history
- InstaWebClaude Code, Codex or Cursor keeps building
- Your hostPublish wherever you like
| With Bolt tokens | With your own AI plan, in InstaWeb | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay for AI | Bolt's plan and its tokens | The Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor plan you already have, or an API key |
| When it runs out | You can't prompt Bolt until your tokens reset or you add more. | Your plan's limit is reached. Switch the chat to another agent you have, or wait for the limit to reset |
| Which AI builds | Bolt picks the model behind the scenes | You choose for each task: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or OpenCode |
| Where the app lives | Bolt's hosting on a .bolt.host address, with Netlify as an option. Custom domains need a paid plan | The host you choose, in your own account |
Your own plan has limits too: Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor plans all have usage limits that reset after a few hours or a week. The difference is that you are already paying for them, and in InstaWeb you can switch to another agent you have when one reaches its limit.
The step-by-step guide covers getting the code out, opening it in InstaWeb, and moving the database and secrets: move a Bolt project to InstaWeb.
Related
Sources
Everything said about Bolt here comes from the official pricing pages and documentation, read on 13 November 2026. Plans and features change: check them before you decide, and tell us if something here is out of date.
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