Pricing buyer guide
AI companion cost: AI companion pricing compared, and what an AI companion app costs per month
Most AI companion apps cost between $9.99 and $19.99 per month in 2026, and nearly all of them put long-term memory behind the paywall. Character.AI is the cheapest of the big names at $9.99 a month, Replika the most expensive at $19.99, with Nomi at $15.99 and Chai and Kindroid both at $13.99. Annual billing is where they really diverge: Replika drops to $69.99 a year, roughly 71 percent off the monthly rate, while Chai asks $159.99 a year and saves you about eight dollars. Darlings starts at $9 a month, and memory is included on every plan.
Last updated August 2026
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Pricing in this category is unusually hard to pin down, and that is not an accident. Replika does not publish its prices on its own website at all: the number only appears on the subscription screen once you are inside the app, and it moves with your region and whatever promotion is running. Talkie does the same. Tolan lists two membership prices on the US App Store without telling you whether they are weekly, monthly or yearly. When a company hides the price until you have already built a relationship with the product, that is a design decision worth noticing.
The second thing worth knowing is what you are actually buying. Almost nobody is paying for more messages. You are paying for memory. The free tier of most companion apps will talk to you happily and then quietly forget the conversation, because storing and retrieving a long-term profile of one person costs real money to run. Chai puts long-term memory in its top tier. Nomi gates the full memory system behind payment. Replika ships a weaker version free and a stronger one paid. That is the actual upsell in this category, and it is the one feature that decides whether a companion works at all.
Everything below was checked in August 2026 against App Store listings and current published plans. Where a company does not publish a price, the table says so rather than guessing. Prices shift by region, platform and promotion, so treat these as the going rate rather than a quote, and check inside the app before you subscribe.
Side by side
How Darlings compares
An honest look, including where the other option is the better pick.
| Darlings | Character.AI | Replika | Nomi.ai | Chai | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest paid plan, billed monthly | $9/mo, the Companion plan | $9.99/mo, c.ai+ | $19.99/mo, Pro | $15.99/mo | $13.99/mo, Premium |
| Cheapest way to pay for a year | Monthly plans only for now | $94.99/yr | $69.99/yr | $99.99/yr, or $39.99 per quarter | $159.99/yr |
| What 12 months costs if you pay monthly | $108 | $119.88 | $239.88 | $191.88 | $167.88 |
| What annual billing actually saves | Not applicable yet | About $25 | About $170, the biggest discount in the category | About $92 | About $8, the thinnest discount in the category |
| Free tier | Yes, and no account needed to start | Yes, with ads and slower replies at peak times | Yes, limited | Yes, limited daily messages | Yes, around 70 messages every 2.5 hours, with ads |
| Is long-term memory behind the paywall | No, memory is included on every plan | Partly, and it drifts on long chats | A weaker version is free, the stronger one is paid | Yes, the full memory system is a paid feature | Yes, long-term memory sits in the top tier |
| Is romance a paid upsell | No, never, at any price | Depends on the character you pick | Yes, romantic roleplay is a Pro feature | Yes, and adult content is included | Yes |
| Costs stacked on top of the subscription | None | None | A legacy lifetime plan was $299.99, no longer sold to new users | Nomi Credits are sold separately as one-time add-ons | An Ultra tier around $29.99/mo |
| Where you can see the price before signing up | On our pricing page | On the site and in the app | Nowhere public, it appears only on the in-app subscription screen | On the US App Store listing | On the site and in the app |
| Account or card needed before your first message | Neither, start talking in the browser | Account required | Account required | Account required | Account required |
Competitor pricing is approximate, is not published on their own sites, and can change by region and promotion.
The full list
Every AI companion app price we could verify, August 2026
| App | Free tier | Cheapest paid plan | Annual price | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Darlings | Yes, no account needed | $9/mo | Monthly only for now | Strictly platonic, runs in a browser, memory on every plan |
| Character.AI | Yes, with ads | $9.99/mo | $94.99/yr | The cheapest of the big names, and the biggest character library |
| Replika | Yes, limited | $19.99/mo | $69.99/yr | The most expensive monthly rate and the deepest annual discount |
| Nomi.ai | Yes, limited messages | $15.99/mo | $99.99/yr | Also billed $39.99 per quarter. Credits are sold on top |
| Kindroid | Yes, a $0 tier | $13.99/mo | Around $11.67/mo billed annually | Ultra and MAX add-ons cost $24.99 and $59.99/mo extra, monthly only |
| Chai | Yes, around 70 messages per 2.5 hours | $13.99/mo | $159.99/yr | Ultra runs around $29.99/mo. Long-term memory is gated to the top tier |
| Anima | Yes, limited | $14.99/mo | No annual plan, a one-time lifetime option at $69.99 | Memory is a consistently reviewed weak point |
| Talkie: Soulful AI | Yes | Reported from $3.99/mo | Not published | Prices are not published publicly. The App Store also shows a $14.99 weekly option |
| Tolan | Yes | US App Store lists $11.99 and $19.99 | Not shown | iPhone only, and Apple does not disclose the billing period |
| Pi | Free | No paid tier | No paid tier | Genuinely free, but Inflection has deprioritized consumer Pi |
| Snapchat My AI | Free to every Snapchat user | No paid tier | No paid tier | Snap states it will not remember prior conversations over time |
Checked August 2026 against App Store listings and published plans. Prices vary by region, platform and promotion.
Why people switch
What makes Darlings different
What you are paying for is memory, not messages
It is easy to assume the subscription buys you volume. It mostly does not. Running a persistent profile of one person, storing it, ranking it and feeding the right parts back into every reply, is the expensive part of a companion app, which is why it is the part that gets gated. Darlings includes memory on every plan, including the free one, because a companion that forgets you is not a cheaper companion, it is a different product.
The annual discount varies more than the monthly price
Monthly prices in this category cluster tightly between $9.99 and $19.99, so the headline number tells you very little. The annual rate is where apps diverge wildly. Replika costs the most per month and then discounts roughly 71 percent for a year up front. Chai costs less per month and discounts about five percent. If you intend to stay a year, compare the annual numbers and ignore the monthly ones entirely.
A price you cannot see before signing up is a red flag
Replika and Talkie do not publish their prices anywhere public. You install the app, start a relationship with the character, and only then see the number, which shifts by region and promotion. That is a well-understood pattern in consumer software and it is worth naming. Our plans are on a public pricing page, in dollars, before you give us anything.
Nine dollars, and nothing gated behind a romance upsell
In most of this category the paid tier unlocks romantic or adult roleplay, which means the business model quietly depends on selling you intimacy. Darlings has none of it at any price, permanently. What $9 buys is a friend who remembers your life and checks in on you, and there is no higher tier that changes what the relationship is.
The honest part
When another app is the better choice
We would rather you find the right fit than the loudest one.
- Pi and Snapchat My AI cost nothing at all. If your budget is genuinely zero, those are the honest answers, with the caveat that Snap says My AI will not remember your prior conversations over time.
- Character.AI is the cheapest paid plan among the big names at $9.99 a month, and no one else offers anything close to its library of user-created characters.
- If you know you want what Replika sells and you commit to a year, $69.99 is the best value on this page by some distance. Paying Replika monthly instead is the worst value on this page.
- Kindroid billed annually works out to roughly $11.67 a month, the lowest effective rate of any paid companion here, provided you skip the Ultra and MAX add-ons.
- If you want adult or NSFW content, no Darlings plan will ever provide it. Nomi and Kindroid are built for that and price accordingly.
People also ask
Common questions
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Keep exploring
More ways Darlings is there for people
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