Retool
Retool is an internal-tools platform: describe an app in plain English and get a working one, wired to production data. Agents, workflows, a managed database and native mobile apps come with it, plus SSO, RBAC and audit logging.
What is Retool?
Retool is a platform for building the internal software a business actually runs on: apps, workflows, AI agents and a managed database on a single unified engine. Its own summary is to build, deploy and manage internal tools connected to any database, API or LLM.
At the centre sits an AI-native app builder, rebuilt from scratch: describe what you want and you get a full, production-ready app with enterprise security and governance already in place. The older drag-and-drop editor survives as the classic app builder, and apps built there keep working. The home page offers three ways in: write a prompt, build from an external coding agent through the MCP server, or import React code from Lovable, Replit, a ZIP file or GitHub.
What separates it from prototyping tools is where the app lands. Every app plugs straight into production sources, with roughly ninety catalogued integrations spanning databases, APIs, CRMs, analytics, messaging, object storage and model providers, and access is governed by the permissions already in force. Authentication, access control and audit logging are there at deployment rather than bolted on later. Retool calls the result the governed app layer for AI and pitches it as the way to secure vibe-coded apps.
The AI layer runs wider than generation: AppGen, AI primitives, one-step RAG, the Retool Vectors vector store, and agents described as AI-powered workers that use LLMs to carry out tasks, make decisions and automate workflows.
Deployment is a choice. Run it on Retool's cloud, or self-host inside your own VPC through a Docker install the pricing FAQ puts at about fifteen minutes. Native mobile apps add barcode scanning, NFC, photos, signatures, offline mode and push notifications for teams away from a desk.
The figures Retool publishes: more than 10,000 teams; Ramp citing $8M and 20,000+ hours saved; DoorDash $6M and 36,000+ hours; Orangetheory a tenfold cut in development time across 1,600 studios; UTMB ten times more patients treated; Zeus over $3M in profit and development 80% faster. The publisher is Retool, Inc., of San Francisco, and the site's structured data gives a founding year of 2017.
What it does
- Generate a complete internal app from a prompt, already connected to production data
- Import a React app built elsewhere, as a ZIP file or through GitHub sync, and deploy it under governance
- Build from an external coding agent through the Retool MCP server
- Orchestrate multi-step workflows on schedules or webhooks
- Deploy AI agents billed by the hour and supervise them in real time
- Publish native iOS and Android apps, or a PWA, with an offline mode
- Self-host the whole platform in your own VPC via Docker
When to use Retool / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Retool is the right fit.
When to use Retool
- Engineering teams replacing the internal tools a business would otherwise wait months for them to build
- Business engineers, analysts and ops teams who need to build against production data themselves
- Regulated organisations that need RBAC, audit logging, SSO and separate workspaces from day one
- Companies that must keep the platform in their own infrastructure, self-hosted inside their VPC
- Field, warehouse and logistics teams needing native mobile apps with barcode scanning, NFC, signatures and offline mode
When not to use Retool
- Teams of more than five people looking for a free tool, since the Free plan is capped at five users
- Small budgets that still need audit logging or fine-grained permissions, as both start at the Business plan
- Buyers who require SAML or OpenID Connect SSO, source control or white-labelling without an Enterprise contract
- Anyone building a public website or a consumer product rather than internal business software
- Cloud customers with strict EU data-residency requirements, as every disclosed subprocessor sits in the United States
How to use Retool
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create a free account from login.retool.com/auth/signup: the Free plan is offered without a card
- Connect your resources first, the databases, APIs and model providers the app will read from
- Start from a prompt, using @ to pull in the data the app should work on, or pick one of the starter prompts
- Or skip the prompt entirely: import a React app as a ZIP or through GitHub sync, or drive the build from an external coding agent via MCP
- Review what comes back, since the generated app is structured from your real schema, roles and existing permissions
- Refine in context: click a component, @mention a resource, or select part of the app and ask for the change
- Add automation with Workflows, chaining multiple steps on a schedule or behind a webhook
- Build an agent in three steps: configure it (prompt or template, choice of LLM, instructions), give it access to queries, workflows, dedicated tools, MCP servers or other agents, then supervise cost, performance and evals
- Publish to the web, to the App Store and Google Play, or as a PWA
- Self-host if you need to, with a Docker install in your own VPC of roughly fifteen minutes, backed by docs.retool.com, university.retool.com and the public community
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Apps connect straight to production sources and inherit the permissions already in force
- Enterprise governance is present from the first deployment instead of being retrofitted
- Genuine self-hosting in the customer's own VPC, where no Retool system stores customer data
- An explicit contractual commitment not to train Retool's models on customer data
- A broad integration catalogue covering databases, APIs, CRMs, analytics and model providers
- AI credits are included in every plan, and you can bring your own model provider key instead
- A permanent free plan with unlimited web and mobile apps, alongside public documentation, an online university and a detailed subprocessor list
Cons
- Pricing runs on six meters at once: builder seats, internal user seats, external user seats, AI credits, workflow runs and agent hours
- Agents are billed by the hour of actual run time and sit outside the AI credit pool
- The Free plan stops at 5 users, 500 workflow runs a month, 5 GB of storage, 20 agent hours and 250 AI credits
- Audit logging and fine-grained permissions only begin at the Business plan
- SAML and OpenID Connect SSO, source control and white-labelling are Enterprise-only, and Enterprise pricing is not published
- On the cloud, every disclosed subprocessor is located in the United States, with no European region announced
- No interface language list is published, and the site, documentation and university are English only
Pricing & Plans
Retool operates a freemium model. A permanent free plan covers up to five users with unlimited web and mobile apps. The lowest paid entry point is the Team plan at 9.00 EUR per builder per month, with additional internal users at 5.00 EUR per month; the Business plan is charged at 46.00 EUR per builder and 14.00 EUR per internal user per month, and Enterprise pricing is available on request. Annual payment is advertised as 20% cheaper, and a free trial is offered on the Team and Business plans. Amounts are served in euros to European visitors, so the figure displayed depends on the country from which the pricing page is consulted.
- up to 5 users
- unlimited web and mobile apps
- 500 workflow runs a month
- 5 GB of storage
- up to 20 agent hours a month and 250 AI credits a month
- 5
- 000 workflow runs a month
- staging environment
- release versions and 1
- 000 AI credits a month (750 plus a 250 bonus)
- audit logging
- fine-grained permissions
- external portals and embedded apps
- unlimited environments and modules
- and 3
- 000 AI credits a month (1
- 500 plus a 1
- 500 bonus)
- 10
- 000 AI credits a month (5
- 000 plus a 5
- 000 bonus)
- free from 0 to 50
- then 7.33 EUR a month from 51 to 250
- 5.41 EUR from 251 to 500 and 3.60 EUR beyond 500
- Extra workflow runs
- 75 USD per additional 5
- 000 runs a month
- on top of any plan
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Retool handles your data.
GDPR overview
GDPR is addressed in documents rather than claimed in slogans: Retool never writes that it is GDPR compliant. A public Data Processing Addendum covers EU, UK and Swiss data protection law, incorporates the Standard Contractual Clauses of decision 2021/914 and the UK Addendum (B.1.0), and points clauses 17 and 18 at Irish law and the Irish courts. A Data Protection Officer is designated and reachable at dpo@retool.com. The privacy policy, last updated on 25 September 2025, carries a dedicated section on processing purposes and legal bases under the GDPR, resting mainly on legitimate interests with a right to object; access, rectification and erasure requests from the EEA, the UK and Brazil go to the same address. Transfers to the United States rely on the SCCs, and the DPA commits Retool to notifying breaches without undue delay. No Article 27 representative appears on any page collected.
Who owns the data?
The Customer Terms of Service state that the customer owns all Customer Data and Custom Apps, excluding the components of the Retool platform itself. Retool takes only a limited licence: to provide, maintain and improve the platform, handle support and incidents, meet legal obligations, or act on the customer's written agreement. The privacy policy, last updated on 25 September 2025, makes the customer controller of Customer Data and Retool its processor, while Retool remains controller of the Other Information it collects; the DPA repeats that split and adds service-provider status under the CCPA. On self-hosted deployments, no Retool system stores Customer Data and no Retool staff hold technical access to it.
Reuse rights
Customers keep the run of their own material: they own their data and their apps, may reuse and export them without asking Retool, and queries execute against their own sources. On Retool's side, the AI Terms state that Retool does not currently use Customer Materials or AI Output to train or fine-tune its own models, and that any change would come with advance written notice to the account administrator and a meaningful opportunity to opt out before any such use. Providers behind a Retool-Managed Model are contractually barred from training on that same material; customers can instead supply their own API key and run a Customer-Managed Model. The privacy policy, last updated on 25 September 2025, adds that Retool does not sell personal information under the CCPA and does not retain Google Workspace API data to train generalised AI or ML models. Employee access to customer accounts is logged and limited to diagnostics.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Retool's cloud is a multi-tenant architecture provided and hosted by Amazon Web Services, Inc. The public subprocessor list places every party in the United States: AWS for the cloud offerings and for Workflows, alongside Temporal Technologies, Neon and Cloudflare on the infrastructure side; OpenAI, Anthropic, Baseten Labs, AlphaAI Technologies (Tavily) and ClickHouse for the AI product; Pylon Labs for support and Mailgun Technologies for email. The affiliate Retool UK Limited may act as a subprocessor depending on where the customer is located. No European hosting region is announced anywhere on the site, so the jurisdiction is American, with the EU Standard Contractual Clauses covering the transfers. Data is replicated across several of the hosting provider's data centres for availability, and is encrypted in transit and at rest with current cipher suites. Self-hosting changes the picture entirely: the platform runs inside the customer's own VPC, no Retool system stores Customer Data, and only usage information is shared back.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Retool.
- Six independent billing meters, builders, internal users, external users, AI credits, workflow runs and agent hours, make the monthly bill hard to predict, and the pricing screen is regionalised so the amount you saw depends on where you viewed it from
- Agent hours are charged on actual run time at a rate that varies by model and outside the credit pool, so a poorly scoped agent can run up a bill quietly
- AI credits do not roll over from one month to the next, and the bonus credits are described as included now and liable to change over time
- Audit logging is absent from the Free and Team plans, which is precisely where informal internal tools tend to start their life
- Producing a production-connected app from a single sentence lowers the barrier so far that business logic nobody reviewed can reach real data: the governance layer controls who has access, not whether the logic is right
- On the cloud, every disclosed subprocessor is located in the United States, model providers included (OpenAI, Anthropic, Baseten, Tavily, ClickHouse)
- Backups are kept for seven days and permanently destroyed within 30 days of an administrator-initiated deletion, leaving a short window to notice and undo a mistake
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Moderate, and it depends on the deployment. On the cloud there is nothing to install: create an account and generate an app from a prompt. Self-hosting is a Docker install in your own VPC, put at roughly fifteen minutes by the pricing FAQ. The real work is upstream: connecting production sources means database credentials, API access and a permissions model someone has to own. Retool aims the product at developers, business engineers, analysts and ops teams, and supports them with documentation, quickstarts and an online university. Contextual editing avoids chat-based guessing.
Deployment
Apps stores
Integrations
Behind Retool
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Alternatives
Tools that compete with or complement Retool.
Frequently asked questions
What can I build with Retool?
Who can build in Retool?
What is the difference between a builder, an internal user and an external user?
Can I self-host Retool?
Where is my data stored?
What exactly is an AI credit?
How many apps can I build with a Business plan?
Can I use my own model provider key?
Does Retool train its models on my data?
Is there a free trial, and is there a mobile app?
Should you pick Retool?
Retool is a mature product that has picked a side: it builds internal business software, not prototypes. The choice shows everywhere. Apps are generated against your real schema, they inherit the permissions already in force, and authentication, access control and audit logging are present the moment an app is deployed rather than added in a later hardening pass. For a team that has watched a promising internal tool die waiting for engineering time, that is the whole argument.
The counterweight is commercial. Pricing runs on six independent meters, builder seats, internal users, external users, AI credits, workflow runs and agent hours, and agents fall outside the credit pool entirely, billed by the hour of actual run time. None of it is hidden, but it needs modelling before you commit, and Enterprise pricing is not published at all.
On data the position is clear and written down. The AI Terms commit Retool to not training its own models on Customer Materials or AI Output, and to giving advance notice and a real opportunity to opt out if that ever changes. The Customer Terms leave ownership of Customer Data and Custom Apps with the customer. A public DPA carrying the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and a named DPO back the European story, and the privacy policy was last updated on 25 September 2025. What is missing is a European hosting region: every disclosed subprocessor sits in the United States, so self-hosting in your own VPC is Retool's answer to data-residency requirements rather than a regional cloud.
Read it as an enterprise platform sold at a startup entry price. Small teams can genuinely live on the free plan; the features that make it defensible in a regulated environment start at Business, and the ones auditors ask about start at Enterprise.
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