You have a client, and the thing you built has to actually be live.
Build the whole thing before you pay anything, because Studio is Included on every tier. What you cannot do is put it anywhere: on the free rung features.deploy reads N/A, and that is the single gate that flips at Pro. Everything else the rung changes is a quota, not a permission. This page is about eight kinds of working professional who hit that same wall from different directions: a programmer who wants an endpoint, a business owner who wants one bill instead of four, a designer with a client site and a domain to point at it.
Eight kinds of professional, and the first thing each of them ships.
Nobody arrives here calling themselves a Pro. They arrive with a job nearly finished and nowhere to put it. These are the seven types with the shortest path from that wall to the thing that clears it, each named with the surface it actually runs on rather than with a capability. The eighth, the accountant or bookkeeper, is in the section below, because what they need is the finance module rather than a deployment.
What moving actually changes.
One line in this table is a permission. Every other line is a number that got bigger. That is the whole shape of the standard ladder, and it is why the honest reason to leave free is deploy and the honest reason to leave Pro is a second person who needs their own seat.
Free, $0 | Pro, $49 | Team, $149 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deploy anything at all | |||
| Projects | 5 | 50 | 250 |
| Editor seats | 1 | 2 | 100 |
| Drive included | 15 GB | 50 GB | 250 GB |
| Xucode, the one module with a membership floor | |||
| AI Workspace credits you buy actually stack | |||
| Client copies you can sell | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Publish to the marketplace, upload a plugin |
A month for Pro, where a build stops being a draft
Gate that flips from free: deploy moves from N/A to Available
Deploy types one project can ship as: six web, five server side and five native
Of what you invoice. Finance runs on your own Stripe account
What the same $49 buys three very different people.
The rung is one rung. What it unlocks depends on what you were already trying to finish, so here are the three types who arrive most often, and the jobs they actually run.
- 01
The programmer, who wanted an API and got one endpoint
Builds the app as typed documents and drops into real JavaScript where configuring runs out: a program is its own unit handed ten named arguments and a fifteen method xu API. Calls the platform from an existing backend over a single route, because http_module registers one wildcard post and looks the third path segment up in config, so there is no route table to learn. Hands the same key to an agent instead of writing a client, and the MCP server registers all 331 tools. Then ships the shape the job needs rather than a web page: cron, api, a managed Node environment, emitter that triggers on database changes at $75 a month, and a dedicated mcp endpoint. Xucode is the one module with an explicit floor, min_membership is the literal string pro, and it takes a git repo and hands back a branch you can open a pull request from, 50 runs a month on its own machine.
- 02
The freelance developer, who has to show it before it is done
Sends the client a preview link mid-build, then hands over in whatever shape the job wants: a standalone SPA or MPA, an installable PWA at $15 a month, an embed that drops the app into a page the client already owns, or a user group build. Invoices from the same place the work was built, because finance_free lists Included with Pro as its first feature: customers, invoices, quotes, products, refunds and credit notes, 25 documents a month. Onboarding opens Stripe hosted flow on a Stripe Express account, so you stay the merchant of record and Xuda takes no percentage of what you collect. When the client already owns the server, external VPS connects it over SSH with no passwords or private keys stored, authorised with a one-line command, and pulls one of 62 first-party plugins into the project instead of writing the integration.
- 03
The business owner, who wanted one bill instead of four
Puts a cart on the site that already exists without touching its HTML, and on Xuda-hosted pages the router injects the store loader itself: 10 products and 50 orders a month at 2 percent per order on the free commerce rung. Runs one inbox that summarises every message, matches senders to contacts, threads mail into conversations, files attachments into Drive and drafts the replies. Takes a business line that rings on the laptop, with $9 adding voicemail, a ring timeout and forwarding to a mobile, and the AI answering it sold separately on the Auto Response plan. Quotes it, invoices it, refunds it in one book. And keeps the contact form from filling with junk: the checkbox scores every visitor passively and escalates to an image challenge, then an AI check, only when the signals look automated.
The work does not stop at deploy, and neither does the accountant.
Deploying is the gate, not the job. What follows is billing, questions from customers, checking who you are dealing with, and finding the file from March. Each of these is its own module with its own free rung and its own priced ladder beside the membership, which is why most of what you want next is not a membership upgrade.
- The accountant or bookkeeper works ten document types on one screen, against their own connected Stripe. finance_free is 1 account and 25 documents a month; $9 makes documents unlimited and adds payment links, orders and coupons; $29 flips subscriptions on with pause, resume, cancel and MRR reporting across 5 accounts; $79 adds automatic sales tax and VAT and a customer billing portal.
- Client questions arrive from a form, an email or the API into one queue with an owner and a status. tickets_free is 100 tickets a month, 1 agent seat, 1 public form, 5 topics, a read-only API and 90 days of history. The $19 rung is where ai_autonomy stops reading none and starts reading draft, which is the AI writing a reply for a person to approve.
- Checking who you are onboarding is its own module. trust_center_free gives unlimited sandbox verifications and 10 live ones a month at contact level, which is email, phone and domain control, plus a hosted verification link and a full API at 10 calls a minute. $29 is the identity level: ID document, face match and liveness, 100 live verifications then $0.35 each.
- Attachments file themselves out of the inbox and into storage. Pro carries 50 GB of Drive; drive_starter at $5 adds 250 GB on top of whatever your plan already includes and drive_growth at $15 adds 1 TB. The Drive plan stacks on every tier, which the AI Workspace add-on does not: get_effective_entitlements only adds workspace credits when the membership is not free.
- Build it on freeStudio is Included on every tier. Nothing you make is gated until you try to put it somewhere.
- Pro turns deploy onfeatures.deploy moves from N/A to Available, and sixteen deploy types open at once.
- Bill from the same placefinance_free lists Included with Pro first: customers, invoices, quotes, refunds, credit notes.
- It lands in your StripeA Stripe Express account you own. You stay the merchant of record and Xuda takes no percentage.
Six things Pro does not do for you.
- Pro is you plus one. team_members goes from 1 to 2 and stops, so the second collaborator is the real reason to look at the rung above, not the projects count.
- Sellable instances stay at zero. Building the same thing for several clients and handing each of them their own copy is the Agency rung, and nothing on Pro moves that number.
- Marketplace and upload plugin still read N/A. You can install any of the 62 first-party plugins, gated only by admin clearance on that project, but registering or selling a plugin of your own needs Agency.
- Support moves one notch and stops. Free reads Starter, Pro reads Limited selection, and so do Team and Agency. It only becomes Open selection at Enterprise.
- A mailbox on a free account is never polled. The only scheduled mail fetcher skips every account that is on free membership and free workspace together, so the inbox is one of the things that starts working when you pay rather than before.
- Past your included Drive the account is metered at $0.27 per GB on total size, not on the excess, so the bill steps rather than creeps.
Four questions, asked on every one of these five pages
Same four questions, different answers per rung. The fourth is the one most product pages leave out.
One gate, then it is live.
Build the whole thing first. The only line that changes when you pay is the one that lets you put it somewhere, and everything after that is a module on its own bill.