Office Hours #74 · 6 October 2026
Features you
walked past.
A 30-minute tour of the Base44 tools hiding in plain sight.
An unthemed week
The tour you
never took.
This is an unthemed beginner week, so Sam gives a 30-minute tour of Base44 features that many builders have never opened, using his cat-walking demo app.
On the home screen he covers voice prompting, the model picker (Astra, Soul, and 5.5 at the top; Base One as the cheap, platform-native option), model compare, and Plan Mode, which he demonstrates with a youth-soccer scheduling app that asks clarifying questions and offers four design directions before charging anything. Attachments, start-from-URL, connectors, platform migration, Figma import, and design systems follow.
Inside an app he shows auto-approve, file freezing, and custom instructions. In the dashboard he covers visibility, data backup and restore, test permissions and act-as-user, the testing agent, the marketing suite (SEO and Google Search Console, social content, Google Ads), agents versus Super Agents, workflows, branded transactional emails that can replace Resend once you have a domain, and skills. The Q&A covers user limits, payments with Stripe, PayPal, or Venmo, SEO crawlers, and the coming Build a Band sprint.
Agents, explained
Chatbot or
Super Agent?
- 01
Agent
A closed brain that only knows your app. Good for a booking help chatbot.
- 02
Super Agent
Acts on criteria across channels, for example running WhatsApp bookings end to end.
- 03
Workflow
Multi-trigger, branching automation, built manually or from a prompt.
- 04
Skill
A reusable instruction set the builder applies across apps, such as WCAG accessibility.
7 lessons
Most of it
is free to try.
- 01
Treat the prompt box like a genie
Describe the app in your head, for example a youth-soccer coach's scheduling tool, and Base44 builds it. You can do this and publish on the free plan. Paid plans add message volume, backend functions, and custom domains.
- 02
Choose and compare models
Auto picks a model for each request, or you can choose one. The premium tier (Astra, Soul, 5.5) costs more per prompt, and Base One is cheap and knows the platform best. Compare builds the same prompt on two models so you can choose a style.
- 03
Plan before you pay
Plan Mode runs a free Q&A about structure, audience, roles, and notifications, then offers four design directions. Credits are charged only when you press Start building.
- 04
Start from more than a sentence
Attach PRDs or screenshots, start from a URL you have permission to use, pre-attach connectors such as Google Calendar, migrate from Shopify, import Figma files with multiple frames, or apply a design system.
- 05
Protect what already works
Use Freeze files to lock a finished page, add custom instructions that are appended to every prompt ("always pink, desktop first"), and decide whether to auto-approve sensitive AI actions.
- 06
Test as other people
Use test permissions and act-as-user to see the app as a specific user. The testing agent runs end-to-end flows, generated by AI or written by you, for roughly 0.4–4 credits per test.
- 07
Grow and automate from the dashboard
Scan and fix SEO and AI visibility, connect Google Search Console, generate social copy, and launch Google Ads. Workflows chain triggers and branches. Branded transactional and marketing emails can replace Resend once you own a domain. Skills give the builder reusable expertise such as WCAG accessibility.
Awards Thursday,
band next.
As stated on 6 October 2026.
- Update 01
Community awards on Thursday
Sam, Sam Schneidman, and Monica will recap September, celebrate the community, tease a big end-of-month event, and award the Community Pillar role and profile badge to three people.
- Update 02
Game Jam closes Thursday
Submissions are approved roughly every six hours, plus a late-evening UK check. Entries must have been created after 29 September and must follow the Terms of Service, so no Mario Kart with Mario.
- Update 03
Next sprint: Build a Band
Create a fictional band or solo artist and build them a landing page or store, with visuals, a playable discography, and merch.
- Update 04
Top-ten games may be featured
Base44's social team was drafting a piece featuring the current top ten Game Jam entries. Sam made no promises.
Beginner questions.
Clear answers.
Every substantive question from the hour, including answers the hosts could not confirm.
16 of 16 answers
You need more than zero. Sync costs nothing, but a completely empty balance blocks it. Your code is still yours to export or sync.
No. One user can break a badly structured app, while a well-built one handles 100,000. Sam's app has 2,600 users and 10–20 concurrent users daily with no issues.
No storage limit. Requests are capped, around 5,000 rows displayed at once, so design how you pull and paginate data.
Yes. Use free testers such as friends and family, an E2E tester, and a paid pentester for anything serious.
Yes.
Yes, anything: PayPal, Venmo, or several at once. Connectors only make setup easier and are not required. Stripe itself took one four-word prompt live.
Yes, with an embedded checkout iframe.
Run the AI visibility checks in the marketing suite and enable AI assistant discovery. Sam is not an SEO specialist and suggested checking the sitemap too.
Sam believes the code takes priority because of how page headers load, but he was not sure.
Not necessarily. With a domain connected, branded emails, including marketing, can send from Base44 using integration credits. You are responsible for your domain's spam reputation.
You can't. They are separate apps.
Base44 backs up projects itself. You can also build your own backup as a scheduled task or workflow.
Prompt for a lighter background, or use Visual Edit: select the background, choose Edit element, and ask for a lighter colour.
Sam had heard about this months ago and offered to chase a status update.
No. The suite generates content for you to post yourself.
Running apps use integration credits, not message credits. Sam shared his explainer page.
Watch the original
The full
walkthrough.
Open on YouTube Model names and prices reflect what was shown live on 6 October 2026 and change often. A "bank connections" setting Sam clicked during Q&A did nothing and may be unreleased.
Bring this to your next build
Open every
menu once.
- 01
Use Plan Mode. The planning conversation is free.
- 02
Freeze finished files and set custom instructions early.
- 03
Test with act-as-user and the testing agent, then with real people.
- 04
Use the marketing suite's SEO scan and fix on every production app.
- 05
Users aren't limited. Structure is what scales.
Keep learning
Further reading.
- Base44 docs
- Base Camp events
- Integration credits explainer
- Base44 feedback board
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