Lovable, Bolt and v0 vs Zarla: an app-coding tool, or a website builder?

A service business — a plumber, a salon, a tutor, a cleaner — needs the site to do six jobs, and this is where a website builder earns its keep:

• Changing the site without a prompt. On the app-coding tools every change beyond a typo is a prompt that spends something: build credits on Lovable (its examples run from half a credit for a styling change to two for a landing page with images), tokens on Bolt (“larger projects use more tokens per message”), credits on v0 (“When credits are used up, generation pauses”) — their own pages, read October 25, 2026. On a builder you click the section or type a sentence, and a new price or a new photo costs nothing.
• Hosting and the domain handled. Lovable and Bolt put a custom domain on their paid plans and sell one inside the product; on v0 the site lives on Vercel, whose free Hobby plan is for “non-commercial, personal use only”, so a business site means a Vercel Pro seat and DNS records at your registrar. On Zarla hosting is included and you connect or buy the domain during publishing.
• Forms that reach you, and the leads behind them. Lovable's form route is a Tally connector (“create forms, fetch submissions”); Bolt's and v0's pages don't describe a contact form at all, and none of the three describes a leads inbox — you ask the tool to build the form and decide where the submissions go. On Zarla every form lands in a leads inbox with follow-up reminders, and in your email.
• Booking, quotes and invoices. Lovable's booking route is a Calendly connector and its invoice route a Xero connector; Bolt's and v0's pages don't describe booking, quotes or invoices at all. On Zarla online booking syncs to Google Calendar with an optional deposit, a quote is one link your customer accepts, and the invoice is drafted from what they chose.
• Taking payments. Lovable has payments built in on Pro through Stripe or Paddle; Bolt takes your own Stripe keys with a Supabase database behind them; v0's pages don't describe payments. On Zarla invoices, payment links, deposits, gift cards and a store run through your own Stripe account.
• Getting found on Google. Lovable's own SEO page says a sitemap is “not always” made and “the starting metadata is generic”; Bolt's “SEO boosting” is a plan line with no steps on the pages we read; on v0 the metadata and sitemap are code you add. A builder writes the titles, descriptions, schema and sitemap on every page and connects Google Search Console; Zarla adds a Get Found score that shows what to fix next. No tool can promise a ranking.

Zarla's AI writes and designs the whole site from one sentence in about 30 seconds, with the first draft written for your trade — a page for each service and each town you list — and you change it by typing what you want or by clicking a section. Online booking, a leads inbox, quotes your customers accept online and invoices are in the same dashboard. It's free to build and preview, and you pay when you publish. The trade is plain: the three tools hand you the code; on Zarla your contacts download and the site itself doesn't export.

Not sure which AI builder? Lovable, Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy Airo, Hostinger, Durable and more are scored the same way on nine tests on our best AI website builders guide, every verdict read on the builder's own pages. Thinking of ChatGPT instead? Can ChatGPT build a website? gives the same who-does-what answer for ChatGPT's three routes. For the step-by-step on building with any AI tool, see how to make a website with AI.

Lovable describes itself as “A full-stack AI development platform for building, iterating on, and deploying web applications using natural language, with real code, security, and enterprise governance”, built for “teams inside companies, by technical teams and agencies, across enterprises, and by people building on their own”. Its quick start promises your first app “in about ten minutes, from your first prompt to a live URL you can share”, and its credits page prices the work: Plan mode is “1 credit per message” and build requests cost by complexity, with hosting and the app's backend metered as Run credits — “When your workspace has no credits left, building stops, AI features in deployed apps stop working, and apps that use the built-in backend (Cloud) pause.” Lovable's free plan gives 5 build credits a day, up to 30 a month, on a lovable.app address; Lovable Pro is $25 a month (100 credits) or $250 a year, and Lovable Business is $50 a month or $500 a year, with custom domains, code download and built-in payments on the paid plans (docs.lovable.dev, read October 25, 2026).

Bolt leads with “Create stunning apps & websites by chatting with AI” and “Bolt does the heavy lifting for you, so you can focus on your vision instead of fighting errors.” Its help centre says “Bolt consumes tokens when it reads, thinks about, and builds your project” and that most usage “comes from Bolt reading, understanding, and syncing your project files, so larger projects use more tokens per message.” Bolt's free plan is “Free forever, no card required” with 1M tokens a month and a 300K daily limit, publishing on bolt.host with a “Made in Bolt” badge; Bolt Pro is $18 a month billed annually — $216 a year, against the $300 a year its page shows without the annual discount — with 10M tokens a month, your own domain and no badge, and Bolt Teams is $27 per member a month billed annually (bolt.new and support.bolt.new, read October 25, 2026).

v0 says “v0 is an AI agent that helps anyone create real code and full-stack apps and agents” — “Ship features, refine designs, update copy, and create live prototypes, all with a prompt.” Its docs say “v0 deploys projects to Vercel” and that credits “function like a prepaid balance”, drawn down by the length of what you type and what the model writes. v0's free plan has a “7 message/day limit” and deploys to Vercel; v0 Plus is $30 per user a month with $30 of included credits and $2 of free daily credits on login; v0 Business is $100 per user a month. The hosting is Vercel's own bill: Vercel's Hobby plan is free but “restricts users to non-commercial, personal use only”, and Vercel Pro seats cost $20 per user a month (v0.app, v0.app/docs and vercel.com/docs, read October 25, 2026).