The short answer
Short answer, prices read on 5 November 2026: for a 10-person team (3 people who build, 7 who only use the apps), Retool Business is $255 a month billed annually, Appsmith Business is $150, and Retool Team is $65. The free Appsmith Community edition on a Hostinger KVM 2 (2 vCPU, 8 GB) is $14.99 a month at renewal, so it saves $240.01 a month ($2,880.12 a year) against Retool Business and $50.01 against Retool Team. The surprise is that Retool Team, at $5 per user who only uses apps, undercuts Appsmith’s $15-a-user Business plan on every team we priced. What you give up by self-hosting is real: you run the server, the backups and the upgrades, and Retool lists self-hosting only on its custom-priced Enterprise plan. At an assumed $50 an hour, the saving against Retool Business is gone after 4.80 hours of upkeep a month.
| Team | Route | Cost a month | Self-host server a month | Saving a month | Saving a year | Hours of upkeep at $50/h that erase it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 people (3 build, 7 use) | Retool Business | $255 | $14.99 | $240.01 | $2,880.12 | 4.80 |
| 10 people (3 build, 7 use) | Retool Team | $65 | $14.99 | $50.01 | $600.12 | 1.00 |
| 10 people (3 build, 7 use) | Appsmith Business | $150 | $14.99 | $135.01 | $1,620.12 | 2.70 |
| 10 people (3 build, 7 use) | Appsmith Community on KVM 2 Our pick | $14.99 | - | - | - | - |
| 50 people (5 build, 45 use) | Retool Business | $925 | $14.99 | $910.01 | $10,920.12 | 18.20 |
| 50 people (5 build, 45 use) | Retool Team | $275 | $14.99 | $260.01 | $3,120.12 | 5.20 |
| 50 people (5 build, 45 use) | Appsmith Business | $750 | $14.99 | $735.01 | $8,820.12 | 14.70 |
| 50 people (5 build, 45 use) | Appsmith Community on KVM 2 Our pick | $14.99 | - | - | - | - |
Our pick means we earn a commission if you buy through our link. Hostinger is our pick for the server because it is the host we already price across our self-hosting guides; its KVM 2 plan (2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 100 GB NVMe) is $8.79 a month on a promotion, paid upfront for 24 months, and renews at $14.99. Our editor score for Hostinger is 1.9 out of 10, unchanged by the commission. See Hostinger VPS plans.
What Retool charges, and why builders cost more
Retool‘s pricing page splits people into builders and internal users. A builder is a user who created or edited an app or workflow in the billing cycle, and Retool bills per builder, per month. An internal user is an employee who only uses apps. The Free plan is $0 for both and covers up to 5 users. Team is $10 per builder and $5 per internal user, and Business is $50 per builder and $15 per internal user; both are labelled billed annually. Our editor score for Retool is 8.5 out of 10.
What each step buys matters more than the price. The page lists the Team plan as without Git source control, SSO, SCIM, 2FA, audit logs, rich permissions and granular roles. Business adds the audit logs and permissions. The Enterprise plan has custom pricing and is the only one that lists self-hosted or air-gapped deployment, so you cannot take Retool onto your own server on the published prices. Because the builder is who pays, a team where everyone edits apps pays the most: put all 10 people of our example on Business as builders and the bill is $500, not $255.
What Appsmith charges, and what the free edition costs to run
Appsmith prices by user, with no builder tier. Its page lists a Free plan at $0 (up to 5 users for the cloud product), Business at $15 a month per user for up to 99 users, and Enterprise at $2,500 a month for 100 users. A user is anyone added to a workspace, and a member present at any point in the billing cycle is billed for the full month. Business adds workflows, reusable packages, premium integrations, custom roles, audit logs and removal of the Powered by Appsmith branding. Separately, the page lists a Community edition, described as the open-source platform available for free.
The software costs nothing; the machine does. Appsmith’s Docker guide says the default setup runs MongoDB, Redis and PostgreSQL inside the Appsmith container and to plan for at least 8 GB of RAM on the host for that all-in-one deployment. A Hostinger KVM 2 has 8 GB, so that is the floor we priced at $14.99 a month. If you move the supporting databases elsewhere the container may need less, per the same guide. That sizing is the vendor’s guidance, not our benchmark: we did not install Appsmith or measure memory. Hostinger lists free weekly backups of the VPS, which is a server snapshot, not a tested restore of your app data. See Hostinger VPS plans.
Appsmith does not have a product page on this site yet, so it is named here without a profile link. The repository is Apache-2.0 licensed per the GitHub API and showed 41,163 stars on 5 November 2026.
Where each route wins
Three results from the table are worth saying plainly. First, Retool Team beats Appsmith Business on price at both sizes: $65 against $150 for 10 people and $275 against $750 for 50, a gap of $85 and $475 a month. Appsmith charges $15 for a person who only opens apps; Retool Team charges $5. If your people mostly use apps and you can live without Git source control and SSO, Retool Team is the cheaper cloud product.
Second, Appsmith Business and Retool Business converge for viewers. Both charge $15 for a user who does not build, so the entire gap between them is the $35 extra Retool charges per builder. With 3 builders that is $105 a month. Third, at scale the order can flip: a 100-person team with 10 builders is $1,850 on Retool Business, under the $2,500 Appsmith lists for 100 users on Enterprise, though Enterprise includes SAML and SCIM and is not a like-for-like plan.
Self-hosting Community is the only route that moves the bill by hundreds. Against Retool Business it saves $240.01 a month for 10 people and $910.01 for 50, because the server price does not grow with headcount. The honest cost is time. At an assumed $50 an hour, 4.80 hours of upkeep a month erase the 10-person saving and 18.20 hours erase the 50-person one. Against Retool Team the 10-person saving is $50.01 a month, or 1.00 hour of upkeep, which is rarely worth a server.
What self-hosting leaves with you
You provision and patch the server, put a TLS reverse proxy in front, run upgrades, and own backups and recovery. Appsmith’s page lists the Free tier as community support, and its paid plans add email or chat support, so expect forums, not an SLA, on the free edition. We did not compare the Community edition’s feature set with Business line by line, so check that the audit logs, custom roles or branding removal you need are not Business-only before you plan around it. Per the pricing page those three appear in the Business column. None of this is advice that Retool is poor value: if you want a vendor to run the platform, Retool Team is $65 a month for 10 people.
Related reading: Supabase against self-hosting: the cost runs the same cloud-against-server maths for Supabase, What it costs to self-host n8n prices the same server for another self-hosted tool, Self-hosted AI agent platforms compared compares self-hosted agent platforms, and Self-hosting an LLM against paying per token: the break-even runs the break-even for hosting the model itself.
When Retool Cloud is still the right buy
- Your team is mostly viewers. At $5 per internal user on Team, 45 viewers cost $225 a month.
- You are under 6 people. Retool Free covers up to 5 users and Appsmith Free covers up to 5 users on the cloud product, so there is nothing to save.
- Nobody owns a server. Self-hosting hands backups, TLS and upgrades to you, and Retool’s own self-hosting is an Enterprise conversation.
- You need SSO, SCIM or Git source control from a vendor. Retool lists them off Team; Appsmith lists custom roles and audit logs on Business and SAML and SCIM on Enterprise.
How we checked
Every price on this page was read on the vendor’s own page in a rendered browser on 5 November 2026: Retool’s pricing page, Appsmith’s pricing page and Docker guide, the repository licence from the GitHub REST API, and Hostinger’s VPS page. All 25 facts are logged with the exact quote and evidence file. The team splits, the totals, the upkeep hours and the server pairing are our arithmetic. We did not install either product, so this is a price and feature-list check, not a performance or reliability test. One caveat: Retool’s page labels Team and Business as billed annually, and we did not find a monthly-billing price on it.
Questions people ask about Retool and Appsmith costs
How much does Retool cost?
Retool is free for up to 5 users. Team is $10 per builder and $5 per internal user a month, and Business is $50 per builder and $15 per internal user a month, both labelled billed annually. Enterprise is custom priced. Read 5 November 2026.
How much does Appsmith cost?
Appsmith Free is $0 for up to 5 users on the cloud product, Business is $15 a month per user for up to 99 users, and Enterprise is $2,500 a month for 100 users. The open-source Community edition is free to self-host. Read 5 November 2026.
Is Appsmith cheaper than Retool?
Not on the cloud plans we priced. For 10 people with 3 builders, Appsmith Business is $150 a month, Retool Team is $65 and Retool Business is $255. Self-hosting the free Appsmith Community edition is the cheapest route. Our arithmetic.
What does it cost to self-host Appsmith?
The Community edition is free. The server is the cost: Appsmith’s Docker guide says to plan for at least 8 GB of RAM for the all-in-one deployment, and a Hostinger KVM 2 (2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM) is $8.79 a month promotional and $14.99 at renewal, paid upfront for 24 months. Backups and your time are extra.
Can you self-host Retool?
Retool’s pricing page lists self-hosted and air-gapped deployment on the Enterprise plan, which has custom pricing. It does not list self-hosting on the Free, Team or Business plans.
When is Retool cheaper than self-hosting Appsmith?
When the saving is smaller than your upkeep time. At an assumed $50 an hour, the 10-person saving against Retool Team is $50.01 a month (1.00 hour) and against Retool Business $240.01 (4.80 hours). Our arithmetic.
Related reading
- Supabase against self-hosting: the cost
- What it costs to self-host n8n
- Self-hosted AI agent platforms compared
- Self-hosting an LLM against paying per token: the break-even
Sources
- Retool pricing, read 5 November 2026.
- Appsmith pricing, read 5 November 2026.
- Appsmith docs: Docker install, read 5 November 2026.
- Appsmith on GitHub (licence and REST API), read 5 November 2026.
- Hostinger VPS hosting, read 5 November 2026.
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