Why does the Purchase More Credits button not work?

Multiple users have reported the button is visible but non-functional on lower tiers. It either takes you to a paywall demanding a tier upgrade or returns a generic error. The feedback board entry titled 'Fundamental Issues' specifically calls out 'UI shows Purchase More Credits when unavailable' as a bug. This is platform behavior, not your account, and there is no user-side fix.

Will upgrading mid-cycle give me a prorated credit boost?

Partially. Upgrading mid-cycle typically adds the new tier's credit allotment immediately but does not prorate the leftover days from the old tier in your favor. You pay for the upgrade in full and get the credits in full, with the new cycle reset based on the upgrade date. Read your billing details before upgrading because Base44's billing UI is documented as opaque and several users have reported hidden dual-subscription behavior.

Can I just stop using the AI agent until next cycle?

Yes, and this is the cheapest workaround. The code editor inside Base44 does not consume credits. You can continue editing existing components, deploying, and serving traffic without spending credits on the agent. You lose the ability to scaffold new features, but for maintenance and small fixes you can usually limp through to cycle reset.

What about exporting to GitHub and developing outside the platform?

Workable for some projects. GitHub export is in beta and does not always export every artifact cleanly, particularly backend functions and database schema bindings. If your project is mostly frontend with a thin backend, export and develop locally with your own tooling, then re-import or redeploy when ready. If your project leans heavily on Base44's data layer and SDK, the export will leave you with code that does not run elsewhere without rewriting the SDK calls.

Are credits really not refundable when the agent ships broken code?

Per current platform terms, yes. Credits consumed by the AI agent are non-refundable even when the resulting code is non-functional or introduces regressions. The Unsupported Dependency Rejection bug specifically wastes credits with no refund. This is one of the loudest complaints on the feedback board and a major reason teams migrate off.

Cannot Buy More Base44 Credits Mid-Cycle — What to Do When You're Stuck

What's happening

It is the 12th of the month. You burned through your credit allotment fixing regressions and shipping two features. You click "Purchase More Credits." Either the button does nothing, or it takes you to a paywall that wants you to upgrade your entire plan, not buy a credit pack.

A user on Product Hunt put it bluntly: "You can't buy more credits unless you upgrade to an expensive tier plan." The feedback board entry "Fundamental Issues" lists "UI shows Purchase More Credits when unavailable" as a known bug. There is no a-la-carte credit pack on lower tiers. There is no overage billing. There is upgrade-or-wait.

The trap is structural. Most users do not notice until they are out of credits, by which point any deadline-driven work is blocked. Teams have reported pausing customer-facing work for two weeks waiting for cycle reset because their stakeholders refused to authorize the tier jump.

Why this happens

Base44's pricing model bundles credits into tier packages and uses tier upgrade as the only mid-cycle expansion path. The economics make sense from the platform's perspective: bundled tiers produce predictable revenue and force account growth at the tier level rather than at the usage level.

The user-side problems are three.

No usage-based fallback. Most modern dev tools (Vercel, Supabase, OpenAI, AWS) let you exceed allotment and get billed for overage. Base44 does not. When you hit zero, you stop. There is no "spend $20 to get 50 more credits this cycle" option on lower tiers.

Opaque per-prompt cost. You cannot predict when you will run out because the platform does not show pre-flight cost estimates. By the time you notice you are at 10 percent, you have one or two days left at typical burn rate.

Misleading UI. The Purchase More Credits button suggests a flow that does not exist for your account. Users repeatedly file this as a bug, expecting either the button to disappear or the underlying flow to work. Neither has shipped as of May 2026.

Behind this sits a reported pattern of dual subscriptions (feedback.base44.com): users upgrading mid-cycle have ended up with two parallel subscriptions, only one of which is visible in the billing UI. Verify your billing carefully if you upgrade.

Sources: feedback.base44.com posts on the credit system, producthunt.com/products/base44/reviews, G2/Capterra reviews documenting billing complaints.

How to reproduce

On a Pro or lower tier, run the app down to under 10 percent of monthly credits.
Open the billing or credits panel. Note that the "Purchase More Credits" button is visible.
Click it.
Observe one of three behaviors: a tier-upgrade page, a generic error, or a non-functional click.
Note that no credit-pack purchase flow appears on this tier.
Confirm via Base44 pricing that credit packs are not advertised separately from tiers.

Step-by-step fix

You cannot solve this on the platform. You can either spend your way out, switch tools temporarily, or change tiers. Here are the four real options ranked by cost.

Option A: Switch to the code editor and stop using the agent

Cost: $0. Time to recover: immediate.

The Base44 code editor does not consume credits. Open files directly. Edit them by hand. Deploy. Continue serving traffic. You lose the agent as a generation tool until cycle reset, but for most maintenance work you do not need it.

This is the right move for the next 5-10 days of typical iteration. Combine with snapshotting before each manual edit so you can revert quickly if you make a mistake.

Option B: Export to GitHub and develop locally

Cost: $0 (if you have an export-eligible plan). Time to set up: 1-3 hours.

If your plan supports GitHub export, push your project. Develop locally using whatever stack matches your preferences (Next.js + your own backend, or Vite + Express, etc.). The export is in beta and may not capture every Base44 feature cleanly, particularly:

Backend functions (Deno) — these may not run outside Base44 without rewrites
Database schema bindings — Base44's SDK is needed unless you replace data calls
Authentication wiring — Base44 SSO needs to be replaced with your own auth

For frontend-heavy projects, export works. For platform-heavy projects, you will hit the SDK lock-in problem.

Option C: Upgrade tier with caution

Cost: typically $50-300/month delta. Time to recover: minutes.

Before upgrading, screenshot your current billing page, current subscription IDs, and current credit balance. Upgrade. After the upgrade, refresh the billing page and verify there is exactly one active subscription, not two. If you see two, contact support immediately and reference the documented dual-subscription bug.

The new tier's credits should appear in your account within 60 seconds. Test a small prompt to confirm. The cycle resets based on the upgrade date, so plan your next month from there.

Option D: Wait for cycle reset

Cost: project delay. Time: up to 30 days.

If you have no urgent deliverables, just wait. Use the time to write proper specs for your next features so when credits reset, your prompts are tight and your burn is lower. This is also the right time to set up the snapshot-and-scope workflow described in the credit-burn fix.

Long-term: prevent this next cycle

Track burn weekly, not monthly.
Move stable code to backend functions so the agent stops regenerating it.
Set a soft alert at 50 percent burn and a hard stop at 80 percent.
Do trivial edits in the code editor.
Keep a running list of high-cost prompt patterns and refactor them.

DIY vs hire decision

DIY this if: You can absorb a 1-2 week pause or your team can do without the agent until reset. Workarounds A and B are entirely user-side.

Hire help if: You are stuck in the burn cycle every month, your team has lost more than 40 hours total to credit ceilings, or you need an honest assessment of whether to upgrade or migrate. Our $497 audit reviews three months of credit usage, models the upgrade-versus-migrate economics, and gives you a written recommendation. For teams ready to move off Base44, our migration service handles the export, SDK replacement, and infrastructure stand-up.

Need help deciding upgrade vs migrate?

Our $497 audit reviews your usage patterns, calculates the real cost of each option, and gives you a written recommendation in five business days. Includes a credit-burn diagnosis you can apply immediately to limp through the current cycle.

Order an audit

Excessive credit burn on minor changes — the upstream cause of mid-cycle exhaustion.
Unused credits don't roll over — why hoarding does not solve the problem either.
Vendor lock-in via SDK dependency — the reason exporting to develop locally is not a clean escape for many projects.