Lovable vs Claude Code on 20 identical tasks: Claude plan is 35-51x cheaper for the same work
PawelHuryn · x · 2026-11-09
Pawel Huryn ran Lovable and Claude Code on 20 identical tasks and open-sourced the data.
Key findings:
- Lovable's Build mode mostly runs Claude Opus 5.5 (8 of 10 tasks answered identically to Opus)
- Per task, Lovable charged $1.26 vs $1.65 for Opus 5.5 via API — the markup is modest; API prices themselves are what's expensive
- On the $200 Claude plan (45x more usage than the same money at API rates), the same work costs 35–51x less than in Lovable
Bottom line: if you can consume the subscription allowance, credit-based vibe-coding platforms mean significant overpayment. Full experiments (cost per task, repo questions, model identification) are in the GitHub repo.
Related event: 20-Task Benchmark: Claude Up to 51x Cheaper Than Lovable(2 posts)→
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