The beginner's guide to vibe coding

It's 2026. You open Instagram reels, and instead of the cat videos you went looking for, you're hit in the face with "I built an app in four hours with Claude Code!"

It feels like everyone — from kids to grandmas — is vibe coding now.

Vibe coding, a phrase coined by OpenAI founding member Andrej Karpathy last year, refers to using plain English to get AI to write code and build apps.

From tech CEOs flexing how much of their company's code is written by AI — Anthropic and Google win the crowd with 90% — to people creating tools to keep up with their aging parents' healthcare needs, building with AI is the topic du jour.

We at Business Insider are no different. My colleagues and I have tested AI coding tools like Claude Code, Manus, Lovable, Base44, and Cursor. We've created personal fitness apps, newsroom assistants, and even our own version of Pinterest.

But the first time I tried vibe coding, it was nothing like what I'd hoped it would be. Turns out, prompting AI in plain old English also takes some practice.

If you've yet to dip your toes into vibe coding, fret not. We've put together an easy guide to get you started.

1. What platform should I use?

The first question is, obviously, where to start? Several products offer users a number of free daily credits to play with.

For non-techies looking to build simple tools rather than complex software products, Lovable, Base44, and Replit are your best bet.

If you're more tech-savvy, you probably don't need this guide, but Claude Code, Emergent, and Cursor might work better for you.

They all work similarly. I chose to use Lovable for this guide.

Because one of my goals this year is to be more mindful of how much I'm spending on subscriptions, I chose to build a subscription tracker, a simple and popular use case for vibe coding.

Now we build.

2. How should I prompt AI on what to build?

So you chose which tool to use and what to build. Now comes the first actual step of vibe coding: prompting. AI is only as good as the prompt it receives.

I've learned that the easiest way to get AI to help you build something is to ask an AI tool like ChatGPT or Claude to generate a custom prompt for your app.

For this example, I asked ChatGPT: "Give me a prompt to build a subscription tracker — I want to track how much I'm spending on streaming service subscriptions, news outlets, music apps, workout apps, etc. I want to be able to see at a glance when each subscription starts and ends."

Vibe coding isn't just about vibes. Be detailed with your prompts, and the AI-generated prompt will come packed with way more details than you'd think to provide. This helps you get a better first draft and lets you avoid wasting free credits on too many modifying prompts.

Paste the prompt into the search bar, keep the setting on "build," and press "enter." Hang tight, because this can take a couple of minutes.

3. How do I correct mistakes?

Then you've got your first glimpse of the app. Maybe you love it, maybe you hate it.

I, for one, was deeply unimpressed.

The subscription tracker looked boring, like something I'd stop using within a week. The all-white interface and PowerPoint-esque pie charts made me want to be financially irresponsible out of spite.

But I'm no quitter: I wanted to change the website to meet my needs.

What you need are modifying prompts. Think about it like instructing an intern: "Change the colors. Make it more fun."

Check out my full modifier prompt below, along with the regenerated version of the website. Again, you can use ChatGPT, Gemini, or other tools to nail your prompt.

When the app regenerated, with tacky neon buttons against a dark background and cliché achievement badges like "Budget Guardian" and "Smart Saver," I thought: "That's more like it."

The website lets me add subscriptions, categorize them, choose a billing cycle, and perform many other functions.

Once you're happy with how your website looks, press the "publish" button and enjoy the fruits of your — or AI's — labor.

4. How can I maximize my free credits?

Alas, nothing good in life comes free. Each prompt takes up credits, so by the time I finished building my tracker, I had only 0.5 of my five daily free credits left.

To ration your daily credits, you can toggle between the "plan" and "build" modes. In the "plan" mode, you use only one credit per prompt, allowing you to plan features and understand changes before modifying the app.

Once you run out of free credits, the cheapest option is to be patient and wait for the credits to renew after 24 hours.

Or you can upgrade to Lovable's cheapest plan, which costs $25 per month and includes 100 extra monthly credits. Other platforms like Replit and Base44 also offer plans from around $20.

Another alternative is to refine your initial prompt with everything you now know and feed it to another AI platform like Base44. Take it from the cheapskates — we've tried it all.

And there you have it: Vibe coding 101. Let the free creditmaxxing begin.

Tell me what you built — or tried to — at abharade@businessinsider.com.