●BUILD — Rork Max runs real Macs in the cloud loaded with Xcode and the iOS SDK, writing SwiftUI, compiling, reading the errors and building again. That loop, not the code generation, is what lifts the output●NATIVE — What comes out is pure Swift and SwiftUI, not React Native. Reaching AR, Metal graphics and widgets that React Native cannot touch is the real gap between this and other builders●PLATFORMS — Coverage spans iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Vision Pro, plus iMessage. Worth a look if you want to start from a watch app or an extension rather than a phone screen●COMPANION — The Rork Companion app lets you check a generated build on a real iPhone without a paid Apple Developer account, lowering the bar for trying a first project end to end●PRICING — Free to start, paid plans from $25 a month, and Rork Max on the $200 Max plan. Worth working out up front how many projects it takes to earn that back●DEADLINE — From August 31, 2026, Google Play requires target API level 36 or higher for new apps and updates alike. Ten days out, and the targetSdkVersion of what you generate is yours to verify●BUILD — Rork Max runs real Macs in the cloud loaded with Xcode and the iOS SDK, writing SwiftUI, compiling, reading the errors and building again. That loop, not the code generation, is what lifts the output●NATIVE — What comes out is pure Swift and SwiftUI, not React Native. Reaching AR, Metal graphics and widgets that React Native cannot touch is the real gap between this and other builders●PLATFORMS — Coverage spans iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Vision Pro, plus iMessage. Worth a look if you want to start from a watch app or an extension rather than a phone screen●COMPANION — The Rork Companion app lets you check a generated build on a real iPhone without a paid Apple Developer account, lowering the bar for trying a first project end to end●PRICING — Free to start, paid plans from $25 a month, and Rork Max on the $200 Max plan. Worth working out up front how many projects it takes to earn that back●DEADLINE — From August 31, 2026, Google Play requires target API level 36 or higher for new apps and updates alike. Ten days out, and the targetSdkVersion of what you generate is yours to verify
An honest comparison of Rork's Free, Junior, Senior, and Max tiers for indie developers: how the 35-credit non-rolling system really works, a script that back-calculates your burn rate, and break-even DAU tables you can redraw with your own eCPM.
If you've landed on Rork's pricing page and felt unsure which plan to pick, you're not alone. When I first started using Rork, I spent a while on the free tier trying to figure out exactly where the ceiling was — and then hit it at the worst possible moment, mid-build, right before I wanted to submit my first app.
The short answer: your ideal plan depends on what you're building and how serious you are about shipping. The feature comparison table on the official site tells you what's included, but it doesn't tell you what running out of generations at 11pm feels like. Here's the version I wish I'd read before deciding.
The Three Plans at a Glance
Before the details, here's the whole picture in one table, current as of this writing. Prices and limits change, so confirm the latest numbers on the official pricing page before you commit.
Aspect
Free
Pro
Max
Monthly price (at writing)
$0
~$25+
$200
Generations
Capped (runs out fast)
Greatly increased
Pro-level and up
EAS Build (device builds)
Restricted
Included
Cloud Mac, end-to-end
App output
React Native
React Native
Native Swift
Best for
Trying it out / learning
Indie devs shipping apps
Apps where native is the core
The single most important thing this table shows: Max is not a higher tier of Pro — it's a different product line. Get that backwards and you fail in both directions: paying $200 when Pro was enough, or hitting a wall on Pro when you actually needed Max. The sections below unpack each plan.
The Real Unit Isn't Dollars — It's Credits
What took me longest to internalize was the phrase "generation limits." Once I actually used the tool, the underlying mechanic became clear: Rork bills in credits, and comparing plans by monthly price alone will lead you to the wrong choice.
The rule is simple. Every AI interaction costs one credit. "Build me a login screen" is one credit. "Change that button to blue" is also one credit. The weight of the request is irrelevant.
The part that changes how you work: credits reset on the 1st of each month and do not roll over. Whatever you don't spend, you lose.
The free tier is 35 credits a month — roughly five a day. On the paid side, at the time of writing, Junior is $25/month, Senior is $100/month, and Max is $200/month. The tiering has become more granular than the older "Pro" label suggested, so check the official pricing page for current names and numbers.
Tier
Monthly (at time of writing)
Credits
How far it gets you
Free
$0
35/month (~5/day)
Getting a feel for it, simple prototypes
Junior
$25
Enough to validate
Idea validation through a working demo
Senior
$100
Enough to build properly
The realistic line for finishing an MVP
Max
$200
Includes native generation
Swift output across the Apple ecosystem
Framed this way, the question shifts. It stops being "how much am I paying" and becomes will this tier actually get me to ship? A tier that doesn't is expensive even when it's free — you pay in time instead.
Budgeting Weekly, Because Nothing Rolls Over
Since credits expire, the "poke at it early in the month, finish it at the end" rhythm works against the system. Credits you underspend in week one don't wait for you in week four. They're gone.
What I settled on is dividing the monthly allowance across four weeks and spending each week's share. On the free tier that's eight or nine interactions per week — tight enough that you decide in advance what a given week is meant to prove.
Week 1: Get the skeleton out. Screens and navigation only
Week 2: Make data flow. Save and read back working end to end
Week 3: Fix the one thing that's stuck. Resist adding scope
Week 4: Test on device, spend the rest on small corrections
If you run out mid-week, stop for the week. It rolls into the next one, and there's no reason to panic-upgrade.
Back-Calculating Your Burn Rate From Month End
Deciding on a weekly share is one thing; knowing whether you're holding to it is another. Once around the middle of the month I feed three numbers into the script below. It's nothing more than dividing what's left by the days remaining, but seeing it on screen makes "stop here for this week" an easy call instead of an agonizing one.
#!/usr/bin/env node// credit-pace.mjs — turns a non-rolling credit balance into a spendable daily pace.// Usage: node credit-pace.mjs <monthly credits> <days elapsed> <credits used> [days in month]const [total, elapsed, used, daysInMonth = 30] = process.argv.slice(2).map(Number);if ([total, elapsed, used].some(Number.isNaN)) { console.error("Usage: node credit-pace.mjs <monthly credits> <days elapsed> <used> [days in month]"); process.exit(1);}const remain = total - used;const daysLeft = Math.max(daysInMonth - elapsed, 1);const pace = used / Math.max(elapsed, 1); // current spend per dayconst landing = Math.round(pace * daysInMonth); // where this pace lands by month endconst allowance = remain / daysLeft; // per-day budget to finish the balanceconsole.log(`Remaining : ${remain} credits over ${daysLeft} days`);console.log(`Pace : ${pace.toFixed(2)}/day -> lands at ${landing} (cap ${total})`);console.log(`Budget : ${allowance.toFixed(2)}/day (${(allowance * 7).toFixed(1)}/week)`);if (landing > total) { console.log(`! You run dry on day ${Math.floor(total / pace)}. Pack more into each prompt to cut round trips.`);} else if (landing < total * 0.7) { console.log(`~ ${total - landing} credits will expire unused (no rollover).`);} else { console.log(`OK — on pace to spend the balance.`);}
Here's a month where 20 of the free tier's 35 credits were gone by day 12:
$ node credit-pace.mjs 35 12 20
Remaining : 15 credits over 18 days
Pace : 1.67/day -> lands at 50 (cap 35)
Budget : 0.83/day (5.8/week)
! You run dry on day 21. Pack more into each prompt to cut round trips.
A concrete date changes the conversation. Knowing it's day 21 lets you decide calmly whether to coast through the last ten days unpaid or upgrade for this month only.
The overlooked case is the opposite one — same day 12, only six credits spent:
$ node credit-pace.mjs 35 12 6
Remaining : 29 credits over 18 days
Pace : 0.50/day -> lands at 15 (cap 35)
Budget : 1.61/day (11.3/week)
~ 20 credits will expire unused (no rollover).
Twenty credits quietly disappear. That looks like thrift, but it's twenty experiments you declined to run. On a plan with no rollover, an unspent balance is not a discount. The day I see that output is the day I finally build the screen I'd been putting off.
Make Each Credit Heavier
If a credit is deducted regardless of how much you ask for, then packing more into each request lowers your effective cost.
❌ Three credits
1. "Build a settings screen"
2. "Add a dark mode toggle"
3. "Persist the toggle state"
✅ One credit
"Build a settings screen with a dark mode toggle. Persist the selected
state to AsyncStorage and restore it on next launch. Layout: title at
the top, settings rows stacked vertically below it."
Same result, three times the cost. On the free tier, that difference decides whether you finish.
Put differently: the time you spend writing the spec before you prompt is the time you save in credits. Thinking on paper before touching the tool turns directly into money here.
One more thing worth knowing — editing the generated code yourself costs nothing. Asking the AI to adjust copy or nudge padding is a poor use of a credit. Let it produce structure; do the detail work by hand. That split is what carries a limited credit budget the furthest.
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WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
✦How the non-rolling credit system works, plus a runnable script that back-calculates your burn rate from month end
✦A break-even script and the resulting DAU tables across $1, $2, and $5 eCPM for the $25 and $200 tiers
✦A staged Free-to-Pro-to-Max investment path plus a per-profile annual cost comparison
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The free plan is a genuine starting point — not a bait-and-switch. You can generate apps, preview them in the Rork editor, and save your projects. For learning what Rork is capable of, the free tier works.
The friction shows up when you start iterating. Apps built through conversation — "now add this," "change that," "make this screen work differently" — consume generations faster than you'd expect. On complex projects, a day of focused development can use up a week's worth of free generations.
The bigger structural limitation for anyone trying to publish: EAS Build access is restricted on the free plan. You need a build to submit to the App Store or Google Play. Hitting that wall after days of development is demoralizing — that 11pm moment I mentioned at the top was exactly this build limit. If publishing is the goal from day one, starting on the free plan and hoping to squeeze through is a frustrating strategy.
The free plan is the right choice for: exploring Rork before committing, building quick prototypes you don't intend to ship, learning the prompt-driven development workflow, and one-off experiments.
When Pro Makes Sense
Paid plans start at roughly $25 per month as of this writing, and for most indie developers that Pro tier removes the most common friction points: generation limits are significantly increased, and EAS Build access opens up. For anyone building apps they intend to release, Pro is the practical entry point.
My own switch to Pro happened when I was ready to build my first EAS build and discovered I couldn't on the free tier. After switching, the development loop became what I'd hoped Rork would feel like — iterative, fast, low-friction.
Pro is the right fit if you're working on apps you plan to publish, running multiple projects in parallel, or iterating frequently on a single project. If you're building seriously enough that you're looking up pricing, you probably need Pro.
One nuance worth knowing: if your development pace is slow — maybe one app touched per month — you may be able to stay on the free tier longer. Be honest with yourself about your actual usage pattern rather than your aspirational one.
What Rork Max Adds (and Who Actually Needs It)
This part deserves precision, because it's often misunderstood: Rork Max isn't simply "Pro with more generations." It's effectively a separate product that generates native Swift apps instead of React Native, launched in February 2026 at $200 per month. Because compilation happens on a cloud Mac fleet, you can go from generation to App Store submission without owning a Mac or touching Xcode.
Generating native Swift means direct access to Apple frameworks that React Native + Expo struggles to reach: ARKit (including LiDAR), Metal-based graphics, Live Activities, HealthKit, and on-device Core ML. I've tested how far the generation actually goes on a physical device — the details are in How Far Can Rork Max's SwiftUI Generation Go? Possibilities and Limits from Real-Device Testing.
The scenarios where Max becomes necessary tend to be specific:
Building a game that needs Metal-level graphics control. Implementing camera features that hit Expo's API limitations. Integrating deeply with HealthKit for a wellness or fitness app that needs to read sensor data at the framework level. Building anything that leans on platform-specific surfaces like Live Activities or widget configurations.
For a substantial portion of apps — productivity tools, social features, content apps, e-commerce — Pro handles everything needed. The test I'd suggest: build your app to a near-complete state on Pro, and if you hit a native API wall you can't work around, that's when $200 a month starts to be justifiable.
Monthly vs Annual: The Practical Math
Both Pro and Max are available as monthly or annual subscriptions, with annual pricing being more economical per month.
If you're confident Rork will be a primary tool for the next year, annual is straightforwardly better value. If you're still figuring out whether Rork fits your workflow, monthly lets you test without committing.
One practical point: most subscription services, including Rork, don't offer prorated refunds on annual plans if you cancel mid-year. If there's meaningful uncertainty about whether you'll use it consistently, monthly is the lower-risk choice even if it costs more over twelve months. My own rule of thumb after years of tool subscriptions: switch to annual only after three consecutive months of real use.
How Plan Costs Fit Into Your App's Economics
It's worth thinking about Rork's subscription cost in the context of what your app makes — or what you're hoping it will make.
Years of running ad-supported apps taught me to price every tool in ad impressions rather than dollars. With AdMob, typical eCPMs sit in the range of $1–5 for most categories. At those rates, a $25 Pro subscription equals roughly 5,000–25,000 impressions per month. A single app with a few hundred daily active users covers that comfortably. Max at $200 is a different conversation: that's 40,000–200,000 impressions' worth, which is why I'd only commit to it once native capabilities are central to the app's value, not a nice-to-have.
If you're building a paid app or subscription product, the math is simpler: Pro costs the equivalent of a handful of app sales per month. Once your first app starts generating consistent revenue, the plan cost becomes a rounding error in your development budget.
This framing matters because it changes how you think about the decision. Rork's plan cost isn't primarily a financial decision — it's a commitment decision. Paying for Pro is committing to the work of shipping something. That commitment often does more for productivity than any specific feature.
How Rork's Pricing Compares to Other App Builders
"FlutterFlow or Rork?" is a comparison people search for constantly. All three tools promise low-code app creation, but they price fundamentally different things. Here's a rough side-by-side as of this writing — vendor pricing changes fast, so verify current numbers on each official page before deciding.
Tool
Free tier
Paid (at writing)
How it builds
Output
Rork
Yes (generation cap)
~$25+ / Max $200
AI generation from natural language
React Native / Swift (Max)
FlutterFlow
Yes (export limits)
~$30+
Visual builder + AI assist
Flutter
Adalo
Yes (publish limits)
~$36+
Drag-and-drop first
Proprietary runtime
On price alone, Rork's Pro sits in the middle of the pack. But the number that matters isn't the dollar figure — it's what you're paying for. FlutterFlow and Adalo center on visual editing: you assemble screens yourself, which buys you fine-grained control at the cost of a learning curve. Rork centers on conversational generation — describe it in English and get a working app back — and instead meters you on generation volume.
In my experience, if you want to fuss over every pixel of the UI yourself, the visual-builder tools fit better; if your instinct is "ship something working fast, then fix it," a generation-first tool like Rork fits better. The question isn't which is cheapest but which matches how you actually like to build — that ordering leads to fewer regrets. It's also worth noting that of these three, only Rork Max reaches into native Swift territory with a single tool, which can tip the decision if native frameworks are on your roadmap.
Switching Plans: What to Know Before You Upgrade
Upgrading from free to Pro (or Pro to Max) is straightforward within the Rork interface. Your projects and existing work carry over without any migration friction.
A few things to be aware of:
Timing your upgrade: If you're approaching a critical development milestone — like needing to build for TestFlight submission — upgrade a day or two before rather than the moment you need the feature. That gives time to resolve any account/billing edge cases without deadline pressure.
Downgrading: Moving from a higher tier to a lower one typically takes effect at the end of your current billing cycle. Until then, you retain access to the higher tier's features. If you're downgrading, plan your remaining builds and exports before the cycle ends.
Annual plan lock-in: As mentioned, annual plans generally don't offer prorated refunds. If you upgrade to annual and then decide Rork isn't the right fit, you'll have paid for a year. This is a reasonable bet if you're committed to the workflow; it's a real cost if you're still experimenting.
Questions to Ask Yourself Before Choosing
Rather than mapping features to plan tiers in the abstract, here are the questions that actually clarify the decision:
Am I building something I plan to submit to the App Store or Google Play? If yes, you need EAS Build access, which means at minimum Pro.
Am I going to work on Rork projects consistently, or just occasionally? Heavy usage favors Pro or higher. Occasional use might work on free.
Do any of my planned features require native Apple frameworks not available through React Native + Expo? If you already know the answer is yes — ARKit scenes, HealthKit data, Metal shaders — Max is probably where you're headed.
What's my time horizon? Planning to use Rork for 12+ months? Annual is a reasonable commitment. Testing whether Rork fits your workflow? Monthly keeps the downside small.
If you've answered these honestly and still aren't sure, start on the free plan for a week and build something real. You'll hit the friction points quickly enough to make the Pro decision obvious — or confirm that the free tier does what you need.
Teams and Multi-Person Use
Rork was designed primarily with solo PoCs and indie development in mind, but if you want to manage projects with more than one person, the handling varies by plan. If team use is on your roadmap, check seat counts and collaboration features in the official plan details ahead of time.
For solo work you don't need to worry about this, but if you're a freelancer managing client projects, it can become a deciding factor.
Calculating the Break-Even Point for Rork Max's $200/Month
Whether Max "feels expensive" is a question best answered with numbers, not gut feel. Years of running ad-supported apps trained me to always translate a tool's cost into the user base needed to break even on it.
Set the assumptions. Suppose an AdMob setup combining banners and interstitials generates roughly 3 impressions per daily active user (DAU) per day, at a conservative $2 eCPM. Under those numbers, the monthly revenue a single DAU produces works out to:
3 impressions × 30 days × ($2 ÷ 1,000) = $0.18 / DAU per month
Using "1 DAU = $0.18/month" as the yardstick, each plan's break-even point comes into focus.
Plan
Monthly
Impressions/month to break even (eCPM $2)
Approx. DAU needed
Pro
$25
~12,500
~140
Max
$200
~100,000
~1,100
Pro breaks even around 140 DAU — a level a single modestly performing app can reach. Max sits at roughly 1,100 DAU, and layered on top of that is a separate multiplier: whether the native-only experience lets you command a higher eCPM or better paid conversion. Trying to recover $200 on ad revenue alone genuinely requires a meaningful user base.
Redraw the Table With Your Own eCPM
Those figures rest on a single assumption: a $2 eCPM. Ad rates swing several-fold across genres and regions, so the table matters less than being able to regenerate it from your own numbers.
#!/usr/bin/env node// breakeven.mjs — translates a plan's monthly price into the DAU needed to cover it.// Replace eCPM and impressions-per-DAU with your actual AdMob figures.const PLANS = [ { name: "Junior", usd: 25 }, { name: "Senior", usd: 100 }, { name: "Max", usd: 200 },];const IMPRESSIONS_PER_DAU = 3; // ads one DAU sees per dayconst DAYS = 30;const ECPMS = [1, 2, 5]; // conservative / typical / strongconst revenuePerDau = (ecpm) => (IMPRESSIONS_PER_DAU * DAYS * ecpm) / 1000;for (const ecpm of ECPMS) { const perDau = revenuePerDau(ecpm); console.log(`\neCPM $${ecpm} -> $${perDau.toFixed(3)} per DAU per month`); for (const p of PLANS) { const dau = Math.ceil(p.usd / perDau); const imp = dau * IMPRESSIONS_PER_DAU * DAYS; console.log(` ${p.name.padEnd(7)} $${String(p.usd).padStart(3)} -> ${String(dau).padStart(6)} DAU / ${imp.toLocaleString("en-US").padStart(9)} impressions per month`); }}
Running it produces this:
eCPM
Revenue per DAU/month
Junior $25
Senior $100
Max $200
$1
$0.090
278 DAU
1,112 DAU
2,223 DAU
$2
$0.180
139 DAU
556 DAU
1,112 DAU
$5
$0.450
56 DAU
223 DAU
445 DAU
The same Max plan needs 2,223 DAU in a $1 eCPM category and 445 DAU in a $5 one — a fivefold spread. Whether "Max is expensive" holds up is a question about your genre, not about the price tag.
My wallpaper app runs interstitials aimed at a Japanese audience and drifts between the $2 and $5 rows. In that band Junior pays for itself somewhere around 100 DAU, and Max only starts to make sense once four figures are within sight.
One caveat on the constant: IMPRESSIONS_PER_DAU = 3 is deliberately conservative. Raising the frequency improves the arithmetic and raises churn at the same time. Lowering your break-even by editing that number tends to be an improvement that exists only in the spreadsheet.
Of course, eCPM and impressions per user vary widely by genre. What matters here isn't the exact figure but the habit of plugging your own app's eCPM and expected DAU into this format once. Put it into numbers and most of the hesitation evaporates.
Which Plan Pays Off, by Developer Profile
The same $25 can be "overpriced" or "a steal" depending on your development pace. Here are three typical profiles with their annual cost and break-even framing side by side.
Profile
Recommended plan
Annual cost (monthly-billed)
How it pays off
Weekend learner, 1–2 apps/month
Free–Pro
$0–$300
No revenue assumption yet; upgrade to Pro when you get stuck
Indie dev shipping releases
Pro
~$300
One ~140-DAU app is within recovery range
Developer where native is the core
Max
~$2,400
Aim past 1,000 DAU via ads plus paid conversion
Building this table reminded me of something: for anyone who can ship one app properly, Pro at $300/year is remarkably cheap. I've repeatedly made the mistake of skimping on tool costs, grinding by hand, and burning dozens of hours as a result. If $300 a year buys the development rhythm itself, that's usually a sound investment.
The Staged Investment Path: Free → Pro → Max
Finally, here's the "order" I settled on by actually moving up and down the plans. Not grabbing the top tier immediately is what keeps costs lowest in the end.
Stage one: spend a week on the free plan and take exactly one app all the way through. The goal isn't completion — it's learning where you get stuck. Do you hit the generation ceiling, or stall at the build? Where you stall tells you which plan to pay for next.
Stage two: the moment you decide to ship, move to Pro without hesitation. Switch a day or two before a build rather than at the deadline, decoupling any billing hiccup from your ship date. Don't jump to annual here — run monthly for three months first.
Stage three: consider Max only after you've built something to completion on Pro and genuinely hit the native wall. You need ARKit, you need Metal, you want to hit HealthKit at the framework level — only with that certainty does $200 become an investment in capability. Grab Max before you hit the wall and that budget usually just sits idle.
If I compress those three stages into one line: pay for what you need, only once you need it. In my case, I regret the tools I hesitated on far more than the money I spent — hesitation is what stops the hands from moving.
Starting Point for Most Indie Developers
For anyone building apps with the intention of publishing them: start with Pro. The free tier is for exploration; Pro is for building.
Max is genuinely powerful, but the delta between Pro and Max only matters when you're building features that require native API access. Most apps don't need that, and you'll know quickly if yours does. Start on Pro, build your first app, ship it, then assess whether Max would have meaningfully helped — that ordering usually leads to better decisions than upgrading speculatively.
Start where your goals are, not where your budget is most comfortable. If publishing is the goal, Pro is the cost of doing business — and in my experience, I regret the tools I hesitated on far more than the ones I paid for.
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