OpenAI API vs Bolt.new
Frontier models: GPT-5, o-series reasoning, image, audio, embeddings
vs. Prompt to full-stack app in your browser — by StackBlitz
Pricing tiers
OpenAI API
Free Tier (Trial)
$5 free credit for new accounts. Rate-limited.
Free
Pay-as-you-go
No monthly min. Per-token pricing by model.
$0 base (usage-based)
Usage Tiers (1-5)
Automatic tier promotion based on cumulative spend. Higher tiers = higher rate limits + new model access.
$0 base (usage-based)
Enterprise
Custom. Priority access, SLA, dedicated capacity.
Custom
Bolt.new
Free
1M tokens/month. 300K tokens/day cap. Public + private projects. 10MB file uploads. Hosting + unlimited DBs.
Free
Pro
$25/month. Starts at 10M tokens/month, no daily cap. No Bolt branding, 100MB uploads, custom domains, SEO support, image AI edit. Rollover tokens.
$25/mo
Teams
$30/member/month. Centralized billing, team access, private NPM registries, design system knowledge.
$30/mo
Enterprise
Custom. SSO, audit logs, dedicated account manager, 24/7 support.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free-tier on OpenAI API vs free on Bolt.new.
| Metric | OpenAI API | Bolt.new |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
OpenAI API · 12 features
- Assistants API — Stateful assistants with tools, threads, file search.
- Batch API — 50% discount for async processing within 24h.
- Chat Completions API — Classic /v1/chat/completions endpoint.
- Files API — Upload docs for retrieval, fine-tuning, batch.
- Fine-Tuning — Supervised + DPO fine-tuning for GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, GPT-4o-mini.
- Function Calling — JSON-schema tool calling; parallel calls supported.
- Moderation — Safety classifier API (free).
- Prompt Caching — Auto-cache repeated prefixes; 50% cheaper cached hits.
- Realtime API — WebSocket streaming voice + text with low latency.
- Responses API — Stateful conversational API.
- Structured Outputs — Enforced JSON schema compliance.
- Vision — Image input for GPT models.
Bolt.new · 14 features
- Browser Terminal — Real shell in-browser. Run npm install, scripts, etc.
- Deploy to Netlify — One-click deploy to Netlify.
- Deploy to Vercel — One-click deploy to Vercel.
- Design System Knowledge — Team plan: shared design-system context for consistent UI.
- Expo Support — Build React Native/Expo apps too.
- GitHub Export — Push full project to a new GitHub repo.
- Image Input — Upload image/sketch → Bolt generates matching UI.
- Import Existing Project — Upload an existing repo and iterate in Bolt.
- Live Edit + Run — Edit code + hot reload alongside AI agent.
- Private NPM Registries — Team plan: use private packages.
- Prompt to App — Describe app → Bolt scaffolds + codes + runs it in the browser.
- Stripe Integration — Hook up Stripe payments in-chat.
- Supabase Integration — Provision + connect Supabase from chat.
- WebContainer runtime — Node.js + terminal + filesystem running entirely in your browser.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | OpenAI API | Bolt.new |
|---|---|---|
| SDK | openai-dotnet, openai-go, openai-node, openai-python | — |
| REST | OpenAI REST API | — |
| MCP | OpenAI MCP | — |
| OTHER | Realtime API (WebSocket) | Bolt Web App, GitHub Export, StackBlitz Sync, WebContainer runtime |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to OpenAI API and Bolt.new are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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