Mobile-first builder · Ranked 33 of 33
Thunkable
Block-based mobile building that education budgets still love
Specification
| Category | Mobile-first builder |
|---|---|
| Cheapest paid plan | USD 18 / month, billed yearlyAccelerator plan, billed yearly. You cannot publish a live app below USD 37 a month (Builder, billed yearly), and even then only one. Unlimited live apps need the USD 99 Advanced plan. |
| Free tier | Yes |
| Pricing model | Free plan with public projects: they sit in a public gallery for anyone to preview and remix. Accelerator is USD 18 a month billed yearly, but publishing a live app starts at USD 37 and unlimited live apps need USD 99. |
| Official site | thunkable.com |
| Community ratings | 11 |
| Last verified | |
| Next scheduled check |
Capabilities
| Capability | Status |
|---|---|
| Full-stack backend | Limited |
| Database included | Yes, simple data sources |
| Auth included | Yes, basic |
| Code export | No, and the vendor requires an active subscription for published apps to remain active |
| GitHub sync | No |
| One-click deploy | Live publishing starts at the Builder plan and covers one app, unlimited live apps require Advanced, and paid Google and Apple developer licences are required separately |
| Custom domain | Not applicable |
| Mobile or native output | Native iOS and Android builds |
| Team collaboration | Yes, paid plans |
| Public API or MCP server | Limited, REST blocks |
| Self-hosting the output | No |
Axis scores
- Reliability16%
- 3.7
- Integrations16%
- 3.1
- SEO and GEO13%
- n/a, not applicable
- Design quality12%
- 3.2
- Agent performance10%
- 2.8
- Speed9%
- 3.3
- Value9%
- 2.7
- Scalability7%
- 2.7
- API and MCP access5%
- 2.9
- Code ownership3%
- 1.8
n/a means the axis does not apply to this tool. It builds internal software behind a login, a native store app or an API, so there are no public crawlable pages to test. The axis is left out of the overall rating and the remaining weights are renormalised, rather than the tool being scored down for something we did not test.
Every axis is scored from 0 to 5 stars. The percentage is that axis's published weight in the overall 3.1 rating.
Interface
Our assessment in one line
A teaching tool that is priced and gated like a production platform, and the gating is the story. You cannot publish a live app on the entry paid tier: live publishing starts at Builder and covers exactly one app, and unlimited live apps require Advanced. That makes the Free and Accelerator tiers evaluation-only, which is not how they read at a glance. Worse for anyone thinking long term, the vendor FAQ states that "you must maintain an active subscription for your published apps to remain active". Your shipped app is a rental. That is materially worse ownership than any code-exporting builder here and it is the whole explanation for the lowest code-ownership score in the index. Two more line items people miss: you still need paid Google and Apple developer licences, which are separate from the Thunkable subscription, and AI tokens expire at the end of every billing cycle rather than rolling over. As a way to teach app logic through drag-and-drop blocks, Thunkable remains genuinely good, and the classroom is where it belongs.
The full review has the verdict, the dissenting view and 11 user ratings