Verdant Free Mode: Is It Really Free AI Coding?
Verdant's free coding mode needs no subscription. Here's how the refresh allowance and weekly cap work, and how it stacks up against Eco and Prime.
What is Verdant’s free mode?
Verdant free mode is a way to use its AI coding agent without a subscription or paid credits. You open the desktop app, select an existing project or create one, choose “free” from the mode selector, and describe the task. The agent reads project files, makes edits, and runs commands like tests to check its own work. No credit card, no plan signup. The catch is a usage allowance: it refreshes on a set schedule and also has a weekly cap, so it’s free but not unlimited.
TL;DR
- Free mode requires no subscription or credits, unlike Eco (needs a subscription, zero credits per task) or Prime (spends credits on stronger models).
- The allowance refreshes every 5 hours and is also bound by a weekly cap, so heavy daily use can still run you into a limit even if the short window has reset.
- Verdant doesn’t publish a fixed message count for free mode, so the practical move is to check usage inside the app before starting anything that might take several rounds of edits.
- In a hands-on test, free mode fixed a small JavaScript bug (a shopping cart total broken by string inputs and ignored quantities), ran the existing test suite before and after, and got all five tests passing.
- Free mode currently works through the regular project/new task flow, not the separate task manager, which at the time of testing only supported Eco and Prime.
- The mode selector matters because it routes the task to a model tier automatically, so you don’t have to pick a specific model name before starting simple work.
- Task scope and prompt clarity matter more on a free, capped tier: giving the agent an expected result and a way to verify it (tests, exact error messages) cuts down wasted attempts.
How does Verdant’s free mode actually work?
You start the same way you’d start any Verdant coding task: open the desktop app, go to projects, click new task, and pick or create a project folder. Next to the message box there’s a mode selector where you choose free, eco, or prime. Once free is selected, you type your request and send it, and the agent takes it from there, reading relevant files, making changes, and running whatever commands it needs (like a test suite) to confirm the fix works.
The description inside the app for free mode says it uses “basic models for light work,” which sets expectations: this tier is built for small, well-defined tasks rather than large-scale refactors or multi-day projects. Verdant handles model routing automatically once you pick the mode, so you’re not stuck choosing between a list of model names before you’ve even described the problem.
One practical detail: free mode is accessed through the standard project/new task flow. The separate task manager feature, at least as tested, only supports Eco and Prime, so anyone specifically after free mode needs to go through projects rather than the task manager.
What can free mode actually handle?
A real test run gives a useful data point. The task was a small JavaScript shopping cart function meant to multiply item prices by quantities and return a total. Two things were broken: values coming from a form arrived as strings (so “$12.50” got treated as text and concatenated instead of added), and the function ignored quantity entirely. Five tests covered string inputs, multiple items, plain numeric values, decimal math, and an empty cart. Before any fix, four of the five failed.
The prompt given to the agent specified the bug, the expected behavior (return a number rounded to cents, return zero for an empty cart), asked it to run the existing tests first, make the smallest fix possible, run tests again, and leave the test file untouched. Free mode explored the project, ran the tests, confirmed the four failures, edited the function, and reran the tests. All five passed. A manual rerun afterward confirmed the same result.
The actual code change was small: convert price and quantity to numbers, multiply per item, sum the totals, round to cents. Two lines. The test file stayed exactly as it was, which matters because that’s what let the result get checked against a fixed target rather than a shifting one.
This was a deliberately small, well-scoped example, not a large or messy codebase. It shows free mode can read code, understand a bug, apply a targeted fix, and verify the result within a single task, but it doesn’t tell you how it performs on bigger projects with more ambiguity.
How is free mode different from Eco and Prime?
The “zero credits” language across Verdant’s tiers can make free and Eco sound identical, but they’re not the same thing.
- Free requires no subscription and no credits. It’s available to anyone who installs the app.
- Eco costs zero credits per task, but only works if you already have a subscription, and it comes with its own separate quota.
- Prime spends credits and gives access to stronger models, meant for tasks that need more capability than the basic tier offers.
Remy doesn't write the code. It manages the agents who do.
Remy runs the project. The specialists do the work. You work with the PM, not the implementers.
In practice, this means the deciding factor isn’t really “free vs paid” in a simple sense. It’s whether you already subscribe. If you don’t, free mode is the only zero-cost path in. If you do subscribe, Eco becomes a second zero-credit option worth comparing against free for capability and quota limits. Prime is the one place credits actually get spent, so it makes sense to reserve it for tasks where free or Eco visibly fall short: incomplete changes, repeated misunderstandings, or work that needs a stronger model to reason through.
What are the usage limits on free mode?
Two limits apply at once. There’s a shorter allowance that refreshes every 5 hours, and a weekly cap that sits on top of it. The weekly cap still applies even after the short window refreshes, so frequent use across several days can hit the cap well before the 5 hour refresh would suggest.
Verdant hasn’t published a fixed number of messages or tasks included in the free allowance, so treating any specific number as a hard fact would be misleading. The more reliable approach is checking the usage indicator inside the app before starting a task, particularly one that might need multiple rounds of back-and-forth edits.
Is free mode worth using?
For small, well-defined coding tasks, yes, based on the tested example. It read the project, reproduced a bug, made a minimal fix, and verified it with the existing test suite, all in one request, at no cost. The value shows up clearest when you already know what “fixed” looks like: you have an error message, an expected output, or a test suite ready to run. That gives the agent a target and gives you a fast way to check its work.
It’s less clear how free mode performs on large, ambiguous, or multi-file projects, since the only tested case here was a small, isolated function. Anyone planning to lean on it regularly should also factor in the 5-hour refresh and weekly cap, since those will shape how many tasks you can realistically run in a given week.
Beyond bug fixes, reasonable free-mode use cases include tracing how an unfamiliar codebase handles something (like a form submission), making a small, precisely worded UI text change, or generating basic documentation for a feature you just built, then manually verifying the instructions actually work. In each case, deciding in advance how you’ll check the output, whether that’s a test, a visual check in the app, or following written instructions yourself, is what makes the free tier useful rather than just a novelty.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to enter payment details to use Verdant’s free mode?
No. Free mode is available without a subscription or credits. You download the desktop app, sign in, and select free mode when starting a task.
How often does the free mode allowance refresh?
The allowance refreshes every 5 hours, but a separate weekly cap also applies, so heavy use across multiple days can hit the weekly limit even if the shorter window has reset.
What’s the difference between free mode and Eco mode?
Free mode needs no subscription at all. Eco mode also costs zero credits per task, but only works if you already have an active subscription, and it runs against its own separate quota.
Does free mode use the same models as Prime?
No. Free mode is described as using basic models suited for light work. Prime spends credits to access stronger models for more demanding tasks.
Everyone else built a construction worker.
We built the contractor.
One file at a time.
UI, API, database, deploy.
Can I use free mode through Verdant’s task manager?
At the time of testing, the task manager supported Eco and Prime only. Free mode was accessed through the standard projects and new task flow.
