Hey everyone. I want to share some feedback on the current Figma Make credit system, and provide a literal step-by-step escape route for anyone else who feels trapped.
I absolutely love(d) Figma Make for the initial 0-to-1 build. Figma successfully built "vibe coding" into their platform, which is incredibly cool. But what isn't cool is blocking users from actually using it that way. The entire value proposition of Figma is rapid iteration. Yet, I hit my third lockout this week after spending nearly 100’s on credit expansions in a two weeks.
Almost all of those credits were spent on debugging, QA, and fixing logic—not building new features. The usage-based pricing essentially acts as an "iteration tax" that actively discourages you from polishing your app.
If you are building a complex web app, you have to eject your code to finish it. I was intimidated by this at first, but Claude Code and Gemini (which gave me easy instructions) literally walked me through the entire process. It was shockingly easy—mostly just clicking "Next" and signing up for a few free accounts.
Here is exactly how I escaped the credit burn and took my app (which uses Supabase Postgres, Paubox, OpenAI, and Claude APIs) fully local for a flat rate - it took me 15 minutes total to move this and i am NOT an engineer.
How to Eject and Keep Building
Step 1: Download your code Go to the Code tab in your Figma Make project, click Download code in the upper right, and unzip the file on your computer. You now own your source code.
Step 2: Open Claude Desktop If you have a Claude Pro account, you have access to the Claude Desktop app and its autonomous Code agent. Click Select folder and point it at your unzipped project. (Tip: Set it to "Ask permissions" so you can approve its changes).
Step 3: Connect your APIs securely Tell Claude: "I just exported this from Figma Make. Tell me what environment variables it expects for my database and APIs, and help me create a .env.local file." Claude will find exactly what Figma named your variables. You just paste your live keys for Supabase, OpenAI, Paubox, etc., into that file and save it.
Step 4: Run it locally Ask Claude to run npm install and start your development server. Your app will now run on localhost in your browser. You can now prompt Claude to fix bugs, refactor 100+ files, and vibe code endlessly without a meter running.
Step 5: Host it on Vercel Once it works locally, you need a place to host it so others can see it. Claude walked me through deploying to Vercel. You just connect your GitHub account, click "Next" a few times, and Vercel gives you a live URL and free Preview URLs every time you update the code.
The Cost Reality Check
Staying in Figma Make (The Walled Garden):
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Figma Pro: ~$15/mo
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Credit Expansions: ~$500/week (if you are aggressively debugging/QAing a complex app).
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Result: Constant anxiety, blocked workflows, penalized iteration.
The Ejected Local Workflow:
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Claude Pro: $20/mo (Flat rate for the Desktop Code agent).
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Supabase (Postgres/Auth): $0/mo (Free tier handles the prototype phase effortlessly).
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Vercel (Hosting): $0/mo (Hobby tier is free and handles deployments automatically).
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External APIs (OpenAI, Paubox, Claude): ~$5-$10/mo (Pay-as-you-go API usage costs literal pennies compared to visual builder block credits).
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Result: ~$30/mo total. Total code ownership, secure API handling, and unlimited iterations.
To the Figma team: The engine you've built is incredible. But until there is a predictable, flat-rate tier that allows developers to QA and debug without financial anxiety, ejecting to a local environment is the only viable way to finish and iterate on functional prototypes.
After providing this exact feedback in the forum multiple times over the past two weeks with zero replies from the Figma team, I am officially done using Figma Make for iteration. Moving forward, Figma will strictly be used for our style library (and honestly, maybe not even that).
If anyone else is bleeding credits right now, grab your .zip file and open Claude. It is so much easier than you think to take your code back!
