Build AI-Powered Apps with a Visual Builder
Adalo is the no-code app builder that pairs AI-powered generation with a visual multi-screen canvas, so entrepreneurs and business teams can design, build, and publish custom database-driven apps to the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and web from a single project — no code, no developers required. Connect OpenAI, Claude, and other AI APIs to build intelligent native apps without writing code.
- No credit card required
- Hosted Postgres database included
- 500 records on the free plan with no time limit
- Web publishing complimentary
- No overages or excess usage charges
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Build Any AI App You Can Imagine
From AI chatbots to content generators—describe what you need and Ada, Adalo's AI builder, generates a working app with Magic Start in minutes. Then connect AI APIs through Custom Actions to add intelligence.
You Have an AI App Idea—But Building It Shouldn't Require a Dev Team
AI APIs like OpenAI and Claude are powerful, but turning them into a polished, published app typically requires full-stack development. There's a faster path.
The AI App Development Problem
- Prompt-led web app builders generate web-only output with code you need to maintain
- Building a native mobile AI app requires React Native or Swift/Kotlin expertise
- No visual way to design the AI interaction flow and user experience
- Connecting AI APIs requires backend infrastructure, authentication, and error handling
- Prompt-to-app tools give you a starting point but no path to App Store publishing
- Custom development for an AI app costs $20K–100K+ and takes months
The Adalo AI App Solution
- Visual canvas lets you design AI interaction screens, prompt flows, and result displays
- Custom Actions connect to OpenAI, Claude, and any REST API without backend code
- Native iOS and Android output—publish AI apps to the App Store and Google Play
- $36/mo with unlimited users, records, and storage—pay only your AI API costs separately
- Ada generates a working app shell from a description—add AI features in hours, not months
- Built-in database stores prompts, responses, user preferences, and usage history
Everything You Need to Build AI-Powered Native Apps
Adalo gives you the visual builder and native output. You bring the AI API. Together, they make intelligent apps that run on web, iOS, and Android from a single build.
Custom Actions for AI APIs
Connect to OpenAI, Anthropic's Claude, Google Gemini, or any REST API through Custom Actions. Send user input to the AI, receive responses, and display results—all configured visually without writing backend code.
Chat & Conversation UI
Build chat interfaces with message bubbles, typing indicators, and conversation history stored in Adalo's built-in relational database. Create AI chatbots, customer support assistants, or interactive tutors.
Prompt Management
Store system prompts, templates, and user preferences in the database. Build prompt template libraries that users can select, customize, and reuse. Manage prompt versions without redeploying the app.
Image & File Processing
Upload images through native camera access on iOS and Android. Send photos to vision APIs for analysis, OCR, or classification. Display AI-generated images from DALL-E or Stable Diffusion in your app.
Usage Tracking Dashboard
Build admin dashboards that track API calls, token usage, response times, and costs. Monitor per-user activity and set usage limits using database records and conditional logic.
Push Notifications
Notify users when AI processing completes, new content is generated, or results are ready. Native push notifications on iOS and Android keep users engaged with your AI app.
From Idea to AI App in Five Steps
Adalo 3.0's infrastructure (launched late 2025) is 3–4x faster and scales to 1M+ monthly active users. Here's how to build your AI app on it.
Describe Your AI App to Ada
Tell Ada, Adalo's AI builder, what your app does. Magic Start generates a complete app with screens, database, and navigation from your description. Ada builds the app structure—you'll add the AI API connection in step 3.
Design the AI Interaction Flow
See every screen on the visual canvas simultaneously. Point at elements and visually direct Ada to adjust your chat layout, prompt input fields, and result displays. Add features like prompt templates or conversation history with Magic Add.
Connect Your AI API
Use Custom Actions to connect to OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, or any REST API. Configure the API endpoint, authentication, request body (with user input as variables), and map the response to display in your app. No backend server required.
Test on Real Devices
Preview your AI app on any device form factor directly from the canvas. Test the full flow—sending prompts, receiving AI responses, browsing history, switching models—on iPhone, Android, tablet, and desktop before publishing.
Publish to App Stores
Deploy your AI app as a native iOS app on the Apple App Store, a native Android app on Google Play, and a web app—all from a single build. Your users download the app and start using AI features immediately.
The Fastest Way to Ship AI Apps to the App Store
Prompt-led web app builders give you web pages. Adalo gives you published native apps.
Native App Store Publishing
Publish your AI app to the Apple App Store and Google Play as a true native app. Prompt-led web app builders like Lovable and Bolt generate web-only output. Adalo builds native iOS and Android apps from one codebase.
Visual AI Flow Design
See every screen of your AI app on one canvas. Design prompt inputs, response displays, and conversation flows visually—instead of describing them in a chat prompt and hoping for the right output.
Built-In Data Layer
Adalo's relational database stores conversation history, user preferences, prompt templates, and usage metrics without configuring external services. Your AI app has persistent memory out of the box.
Predictable Platform Cost
Adalo costs $36/mo with unlimited users and storage. You pay your AI API provider (OpenAI, Anthropic) separately based on usage. No surprise platform charges on top of your AI costs.
Visual Canvas for AI Workflows
See input screens, AI processing views, results displays, and history logs simultaneously. Adalo's multi-screen canvas lets you design AI-powered flows visually with spatial precision.
Scale to Production Traffic
Adalo 3.0 delivers 3–4× faster performance and handles 1M+ monthly active users. Your AI app handles growing usage without infrastructure changes or performance degradation.
Adalo AI App vs. Prompt-Led Web Builders vs. Custom Development
See how building AI apps with Adalo compares to prompt-led web app builders and custom development.
| Factor | Adalo AI App | Lovable / Bolt (Prompt-Led) | Custom Development |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build Time | ✅ Days to weeks | Hours (web prototype only) | 3–6 months |
| Monthly Cost | ✅ $36/mo flat + AI API costs | $20–50/mo + AI API costs + hosting | $5,000–20,000/mo (hosting + team) |
| Native Mobile App | ✅ iOS and Android (true native) | Web only—no app store publishing | Yes (if budgeted separately) |
| Visual Editing | ✅ Multi-screen canvas, point-and-direct | Chat-based—describe changes in text | Code-based |
| Built-In Database | ✅ Relational database included | Requires external setup (Supabase, etc.) | Custom implementation |
| Code Maintenance | ✅ No code to maintain | Generated code you must maintain | Full codebase to maintain |
| AI API Connection | ✅ Custom Actions (visual config) | Code-level API integration | Custom backend implementation |
Tips for AI App Success
Patterns from Makers who have built and shipped successful AI-powered apps with Adalo.
Start with One AI Feature
Don't build a Swiss Army knife. Pick one AI capability (text generation, image analysis, classification) and nail the user experience. Expand to additional AI features once the core works well.
Store Prompts in the Database
Put system prompts and templates in Adalo's database instead of hardcoding them in Custom Actions. This lets you update prompts without republishing the app and A/B test different prompt versions.
Handle Loading States
AI API calls take 1–10 seconds. Design loading indicators, typing animations, or progress bars so users know the AI is working. A blank screen during processing feels broken; a spinner feels intentional.
Monitor API Costs Early
Build a usage tracking dashboard before launch. Track API calls per user, token counts, and costs. Set up alerts via Zapier when usage exceeds thresholds so you're never surprised by an AI bill.
Use SheetBridge for Training Data
If your prompts, examples, or reference data live in Google Sheets, use SheetBridge to connect them as a relational database. Update your AI's context without redeploying the app.
Test with Edge-Case Inputs
AI features fail in surprising ways. Before launching, test with empty inputs, very long inputs, special characters, and nonsensical prompts. Build graceful error handling for every failure mode.
Everything You Need to Build & Ship an AI App
Unlimited Records on Paid Plans
No caps on conversations, prompts, or responses. Adalo paid plans include unlimited database records, users, and storage. Free plan includes 500 records to prototype.
Custom Actions for Any API
Connect to OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, or any REST endpoint. Configure authentication, request bodies, and response mapping visually—no backend code required.
Google Sheets via SheetBridge
Store prompt templates, training data, or configuration in Google Sheets. SheetBridge connects your spreadsheet as a relational database for easy content management.
Push Notifications
Native push notifications for completed AI processing, new content alerts, and engagement reminders. Keep users coming back to your AI app.
Common Questions About Building AI Apps
What is Adalo?
Adalo is the no-code app builder that pairs AI-powered generation with a visual multi-screen canvas, so entrepreneurs and business teams can design, build, and publish custom database-driven apps to the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and web from a single project — no code, no developers required.
How do I connect OpenAI or Claude to my Adalo app?
Through Custom Actions. You configure the API endpoint (e.g., api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions), add your API key as an authentication header, define the request body with user input mapped to variables, and map the response fields to display in your app. The entire configuration is visual—no backend server, no code deployment. You bring your own API key from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or any other provider.
Can I build AI features into any type of app?
Yes. AI features via Custom Actions can be added to any Adalo app—CRM apps with AI-powered lead scoring, inventory apps with image-based item recognition, marketplace apps with smart search, or standalone AI tools like chatbots and content generators. The AI capability is an integration layer, not a separate app type.
How is Ada (Adalo's AI builder) different from the AI app I'm building?
Ada is the AI that helps you build the app itself—it generates screens, databases, and navigation from your description using Magic Start, and makes changes when you visually direct it on the canvas. The AI in your app (OpenAI, Claude, etc.) is what your end users interact with. Ada builds the container; your AI API provides the intelligence inside it. They're separate systems serving different purposes.
How do I manage prompts and templates in the app?
Store system prompts and user-facing templates in Adalo's built-in relational database as a Prompts collection. Each record holds the prompt text, category, model preference, and parameters. Users can browse templates, select one, and customize it before sending to the AI. Since prompts live in the database, you can update them without republishing the app—just change the record.
How much does it cost to run an AI app on Adalo?
Adalo's paid plans start at $36/mo with unlimited usage—no caps on users, records, actions, or storage. AI API costs are separate and paid directly to your provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.). For reference, OpenAI's GPT-4o costs roughly $2.50 per million input tokens. A typical AI app with 1,000 daily queries might cost $5–30/mo in API fees on top of the $36 Adalo subscription. The free plan includes 500 database records to prototype your AI app before committing.
How is Adalo different from Lovable or Bolt for AI apps?
Lovable and Bolt are prompt-led web app builders—you describe what you want in text, they generate web code, and you deploy a web app. Adalo is a no-code app builder—you see every screen on a canvas, visually direct changes, and publish native iOS and Android apps to the App Store and Google Play. If you need a quick web prototype, prompt-led builders work well. If you need a published native app with a polished user experience, a built-in database, and no code to maintain, Adalo is the better fit.
What can't Adalo do for AI apps?
Adalo excels at building the user-facing app layer with AI integrations, but it doesn't replace dedicated AI infrastructure. Real-time streaming responses (token-by-token display), fine-tuning AI models, running ML inference locally on-device, and building complex AI pipelines with chained model calls require custom development or specialized AI platforms. Adalo's Custom Actions handle standard request-response API patterns, which covers most AI app use cases (chatbots, content generation, image analysis, classification). For apps that need streaming or on-device ML, you'd need native development.
Explore more solutions: CRM Apps, Marketplace Apps, Inventory Apps, and Internal Tools. Learn more about Adalo's no-code app builder.
Learn How to Build AI Apps with Adalo
Step-by-step guides, video walkthroughs, and documentation to help you build and ship AI-powered apps.
Custom Actions: Connect Any API
How to configure Custom Actions to connect your app to OpenAI, Claude, and other REST APIs.
View docs →External Collections for AI Data
How to use External Collections to read and write data from external AI services and databases.
View docs →Managing AI Prompts with SheetBridge
Use Google Sheets to manage prompt templates and AI configuration without redeploying your app.
Read guide →Database for Conversation History
Store AI conversations, user preferences, and usage data using Adalo's built-in relational database.
View docs →Ready to Build Your AI App?
Join Makers who are shipping AI-powered native apps to the App Store and Google Play—without writing code or maintaining a backend.