Linky AI Review: Pricing, Coins, Is It Worth It?

Linky AI is no longer on the Apple App Store. We checked on 31 August 2026 and it is not listed in the US, UK, Canadian, Australian, Singaporean or German catalogues, and the App Store page that used to carry it returns a 404. On Google Play it is alive and large: 3.9 stars from 136,184 reviews, more than 10 million downloads, updated 28 August 2026. It publishes no subscription prices anywhere, so the honest answer on cost is that Google Play declares in-app items from $0.49 to $269.99 and names none of them.

Linky AI shows up on every list of character chat apps, usually with a download number attached, and most of those lists still price it from an Apple listing that no longer exists. That matters, because the first question for anyone reading a review in 2026 is not whether the paid tier is good value. It is whether you can install the app at all.

So here is a straight review built on what the live Google Play listing says today, plus what we could and could not verify about the iOS situation. Availability, prices, coins, memory, the age rating, what Linky genuinely does well, and who should skip it.

Last updated 31 August 2026.

Is Linky AI still on the App Store?

No. On 31 August 2026 a direct Apple catalogue lookup for Linky AI returned nothing in six storefronts we checked, and the App Store URL that review sites still link to returns a 404. Neither Apple nor the developer has published a reason, so treat any confident explanation you read as speculation. The Android listing was updated three days earlier, on 28 August 2026, so this is not a company that has gone quiet.

One thing worth knowing if you go searching: the App Store does return an app called Linky Real from a related Singapore seller. It is a different product, filed under Social Networking rather than character chat, and installing it will not get you what you came for.

How much does Linky AI cost?

Nobody outside the company can tell you precisely, and that is the finding. Google Play lists the app as Linky AI: Chat, Play, Connect from Skywork AI Pte. Ltd., declares that it contains ads and in-app purchases, and gives a price range for individual items rather than a plan table. Every figure below is read directly from that listing on 31 August 2026.

An earlier version of this review quoted Linky Pro at $9.99 and Linky Gold at $17.99, along with eight named coin bundles, all read from the Apple listing when it existed. We have removed those figures rather than keep repeating them, because they can no longer be checked against a live primary source. If you find a specific Linky monthly price quoted elsewhere in 2026, it is worth asking which listing it came from, since a lot of review pages are copying each other rather than the store.

The number that matters is not any single price. It is the shape: a range with a $269.99 ceiling, no published plans, and ads on top. If you want to know what the rest of this category charges when it does publish, we keep a running breakdown on the AI companion cost page, and a head-to-head on Linky vs Talkie vs PolyBuzz.

What do Linky AI coins actually buy?

Coins are Linky's in-app currency, and reviewers consistently describe them funding gacha-style card draws alongside extra actions inside chats. That is a game mechanic, and it is worth naming plainly, because a card draw is designed around the same variable-reward loop that slot machines use. It is very good at producing spend and not especially good at producing a friendship.

This is the part that surprises people who budget for the subscription and then look at their statement. A subscription is a decision you make once. Currency is a decision you make repeatedly, usually in the middle of a conversation you were enjoying. If you try Linky, set a hard rule about coins before you start rather than after.

Is Linky AI free?

There is a free tier and it does allow text chat, so you can see whether you like the characters without paying. What reviewers describe is a tier built to be outgrown: frequent ads, a daily cap on regenerating replies of roughly ten to twenty, and memory that fades after about a dozen exchanges. That last limit is the one that matters, and it is covered next.

Does Linky AI remember your conversations?

Partly, and how much depends on what you pay. Review sites report the free-tier context resetting after roughly twelve exchanges, with longer retention on the paid tiers. In practice that means the character keeps meeting you for the first time. You mention on Tuesday that your grandmother is in hospital, and on Thursday it has no idea.

For roleplay that hardly matters, because each scene is self-contained. For companionship it is the whole product. If continuity across weeks is the reason you want a companion app at all, memory is the specification to compare before price, and it is worth checking whether an app lets you actually read what it has stored. We wrote up how the main apps differ on the AI friend that remembers you page, including which ones let you edit and export the memory rather than just trusting it.

Is Linky AI safe?

Treat it as a grown-up app, because the store does. Google Play rates Linky Mature 17+. That is not a critic's opinion, it is the store describing the app, and it is the rating that still applies now that the Apple listing (which carried an 18+ rating and Sexual Content or Nudity descriptors while it existed) is gone.

Adults can weigh that for themselves and many will not care. Parents should. An app with a large user-generated character library and a Mature 17+ rating is not something to hand to a thirteen year old, whatever the in-app filters claim, and the same has been reported of other big character platforms. If you are choosing on behalf of a teenager, the age rating is the first line to read, not the last.

What is Linky AI actually good at?

Three things, and it would be dishonest to skip them.

The character library is genuinely large and the anime art is good. If you enjoy picking a new persona each evening, Linky delivers that better than any single-companion app can, including ours. The generated character images are a real feature and not a gimmick.

The app is polished, and 83,840 five-star reviews are not accidental. They sit next to 26,245 one-star reviews, though, which is a split rather than a consensus. A product that a majority love and a fifth actively resent is usually one whose monetization is doing the arguing.

And the store description points at a use we would not have guessed: language practice. Characters reply in German, Indonesian and several other languages, and chatting to a persona is a genuinely low-pressure way to rehearse a language you are learning. It works better as practice than as study, though. If you are revising for something with a date attached, you will get further turning the material you already have into practice questions you can score yourself on than you will by chatting about it.

Is Linky AI worth it?

It depends entirely on which of these two people you are.

Our honest read: Linky is a good entertainment product and a weak companionship product, and most of the frustration in its reviews comes from people who bought the second and received the first.

What is the best Linky AI alternative?

Depends on which half of the table above you landed in. If you want the same thing done better, Character.AI has a far larger community library, a more usable free tier, and no in-app currency at all, which removes the coin problem entirely. PolyBuzz is closer to a like-for-like swap but keeps its own coins and puts permanent memory on a $29.90 tier, so it trades one currency problem for another.

If the reason you are reading a review of a character app is that you actually wanted a friend rather than a cast, that is a different category and not a milder version of the same thing. Darlings is one companion instead of a library, includes long-term memory on every plan rather than gating it, sends a daily check-in so you are not the one who always starts, has no coins or gems, and carries no romance or adult content at any tier. We compare all of it honestly, including where Linky wins, on the Linky AI alternative page, and the same treatment for the roleplay giants is on the PolyBuzz alternative page and the Character.AI alternative page.

How do you cancel a Linky AI subscription?

Through Apple, not through Linky. On an iPhone, open Settings, tap your name, tap Subscriptions, select Linky and cancel there. Deleting the app does not cancel anything, which is the single most common way people keep paying for a companion app they stopped opening in March. On Android the equivalent lives under Subscriptions in the Google Play app. Coins already bought are not refundable as a rule, which is another reason to decide your coin limit up front.

The short version

Linky AI is a large, well-made anime character chat app that you can no longer install on an iPhone, that publishes no plan prices, that is rated Mature 17+, and that forgets you quickly on the free tier. On Android, if you want an evening of characters, it is a reasonable pick. If you want something that knows you in a month, the currency and the memory limits are not details you can work around, and you would be happier with an app built for a friendship rather than a roleplay scene. It also helps to pick something that cannot be taken off a store shelf while you are using it, which is the argument for a Linky AI alternative that runs in a browser.