Chai AI pricing
Chai subscription cost: Chai AI pricing, Premium and Ultra tiers, and what Chai really charges
Chai is free to install and sells two paid ladders. On the US App Store on September 8, 2026, Premium is listed at $13.99 monthly and $134.99 annually, and Ultra at $29.99 monthly and $19.99 weekly. On chai-ai.com the same product is sold as $159.99 a year or $9.99 a week. The annual plan therefore costs $25.00 more on Chai own website than inside the iPhone app, and the tier names do not match between the two storefronts.
Last updated September 2026
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Almost every page that ranks for this question quotes one ladder: $159.99 a year and $9.99 a week. Those numbers are real, they come from Chai own pricing page, and they are not the prices most people actually pay.
Chai sells through three separate surfaces and each one prints a different set of names and figures. The website sells an annual and a weekly plan. The iPhone app sells Premium and Ultra, which the website never mentions. A third add-on called CHAI MAX appears only in Chai FAQ, priced per month or per thousand tokens. Nothing on Chai site reconciles the three, so the honest answer to what Chai costs starts with where you are standing when you buy it.
Everything below was read on September 8, 2026 from Chai US App Store listing, its Google Play listing and its own pricing and FAQ pages, with the source named each time.
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How Darlings compares
An honest look, including where the other option is the better pick.
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| Darlings | Chai | |
|---|---|---|
| Same price everywhere you buy it | Yes, one published price list | No. $159.99 a year on the website, $134.99 a year in the App Store |
| Tier names match across storefronts | Yes, Companion, Plus and Circle everywhere | No. The website sells annual and weekly, Apple sells Premium and Ultra |
| Entry price | $9 a month, or $7.50 a month billed yearly | Premium Membership listed at $9.99, period not printed by Apple |
| Cheapest monthly you can verify | $9 | Premium Subscription (Monthly), $13.99 |
| Annual price | $90 a year | $134.99 in the App Store, $159.99 on chai-ai.com |
| Top tier | Circle at $39 a month, or $32.50 billed yearly | Ultra, listed at $29.99 monthly and $269.99 annually |
| Metered or per-token billing | None. The plan is the price | Yes. CHAI MAX Auto bills $0.66 per 1,000 tokens generated |
| One-off consumables | None, nothing to top up | Yes, a 200 Pieces pack at $2.79 |
| Ads on the free tier | No ads at any tier | Yes. Apple lists Advertising as a content descriptor and Play flags the app as containing ads |
| Memory included at the entry price | Yes, persistent memory on every plan | Long-term memory sits on the Ultra tier at $29.99 |
| Free way in | Free demo in the browser, no card and no account | Free tier with ads and a message clock, plus a 24-hour trial |
| Romance or NSFW upsells | None at any price, by design | NSFW is permitted and is a large part of the library |
| Store rating | Not in an app store, it is a web app | 4.33 from 275,820 on Apple, 3.63 from 829,923 on Google Play |
| Age rating | Wholesome by design, minimum age 13 | 18+ on the US App Store, Mature 17+ on Google Play |
| Listed seller | Darlings, operated directly at darlings.ai | Chai Research Corp. |
Chai figures read from the CHAI: Social AI Platform listing on the US App Store, the Chai: Chat AI Platform listing on Google Play, and chai-ai.com/pricing and chai-ai.com/faq, all on September 8, 2026. Apple prints in-app purchase names and prices but never the billing period, so any period given here is the one Chai itself names in the purchase title.
The full list
What Chai charges, by storefront, read September 8, 2026
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| Where you buy it | What it is called there | Listed price | What that works out to |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPhone, App Store | Premium Subscription (Monthly) | $13.99 | The cheapest monthly figure Chai prints anywhere |
| iPhone, App Store | Premium Subscription (Annual) | $134.99 | About $11.25 a month, and $25.00 less than the website annual |
| iPhone, App Store | Premium Membership | $9.99 | Apple prints no period on this item, so the term is unknown |
| iPhone, App Store | Ultra Subscription (Monthly) | $29.99 | The tier that carries long-term memory |
| iPhone, App Store | Ultra Subscription (Weekly) | $19.99 | About $1,039 a year if you never switch off the weekly billing |
| iPhone, App Store | Ultra Subscription (Annual) | $269.99 | Read in August 2026. Not among the ten items Apple displayed on September 8 |
| iPhone, App Store | Premium Subscription (Weekly) | $5.99 | Read in August 2026, about $311 a year. Not displayed on September 8 |
| iPhone, App Store | 200 Pieces | $2.79 | A one-off consumable, not a subscription |
| chai-ai.com | Annual plan | $159.99 a year | About $13.33 a month, sold after a 24-hour trial |
| chai-ai.com | Weekly plan | $9.99 a week | Advertised as 60 percent off $24.99. About $519 a year |
| Chai FAQ only | CHAI MAX Monthly | $90 a month | An add-on on top of a paid plan. It doubles the rate limit |
| Chai FAQ only | CHAI MAX Auto | $0.66 per 1,000 tokens | Metered billing with no rate limit and no stated ceiling |
| Darlings, for comparison | Companion, Plus, Circle | $9, $19 or $39 a month | One published list, the same price in every browser, free demo first |
Apple shows at most ten in-app purchases on a web listing and rotates which ones appear. Seven Chai items were visible on September 8, 2026; the Ultra annual and Premium weekly rows were read from the same listing in August 2026 and are marked as such rather than dropped, because a price rotating off the display is not the same as a price being withdrawn. Website figures are quoted from Chai own pricing page.
Cost comparison
What an AI companion costs a year, cheapest verified annual price first
Ranked on the annual figure, because that is where these apps differ most and where the weekly plans quietly become expensive. Every price below was read from the app own US App Store listing or from the company own published pricing page in September 2026.
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1
Pi
Best for paying nothing at all · Free, no paid tier
Still genuinely free with a capable web version, and the gentlest of the general assistants. The catch is direction rather than money: Inflection moved its focus to enterprise work, so the consumer product is maintained rather than developed.
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2
Character.AI
Best for the cheapest paid entry in the category · Lite $2.49, c.ai+ $9.99 a month or $94.99 a year
The lowest listed paid tier of any major companion app, and the largest library. It sells no persistent memory at any price, which is the thing most people are actually trying to buy, so cheap here does not mean complete.
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3
Darlings
Best for knowing the total before you pay · $9 a month, or $90 a year at $7.50 a month
Our own product, listed here on one measurable point rather than a claim: the price is on a public page, it is the same in every browser, and persistent memory is on the entry plan instead of the top one. Onboarding is still from a waitlist.
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4
Nomi
Best for the strongest memory if you are an adult · Launch Plan $9.99, Standard $15.99, Standard Yearly $99.99
The Launch Plan at $9.99 is the quiet bargain of the category and is listed on Apple with no retired marker, though Nomi publishes no plan page to confirm a new account can still pick it. Rated 18+ with a Sexual Content or Nudity descriptor.
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5
Chai
Best for nobody who cares what they are paying · Premium $134.99 a year on Apple, $159.99 a year on the website, Ultra $269.99 a year
The only app on this list whose annual price depends on which of its own storefronts you read, and the gap on the entry annual is $25.00. Long-term memory sits on Ultra, listed at $29.99 monthly and $269.99 annually, the free tier runs ads, and the weekly plans run to $519 or $1,039 a year if left on.
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6
Kindroid
Best for nobody who is watching cost · $15.99 a month, three months $42.99, yearly $159.99
The most expensive annual plan here, matched only by Chai website price, and kindroid.ai/pricing is behind a login wall so you cannot check any of it before creating an account.
Weekly plans are shown at their true annual run rate because that is what they cost if you forget to cancel. Where a company publishes its own pricing page and the App Store disagrees, both figures are given rather than one.
Why people switch
What makes Darlings different
One price list, and it is on a public page
Three plans, the monthly figure, the annual total and the effective monthly rate, all readable at darlings.ai/pricing without an account and without opening a purchase sheet. There is no second, different price waiting for you inside an app store.
Memory is on the entry plan, not the top one
Chai puts long-term memory on Ultra at $29.99 a month. Persistent memory of your people, your week and what you were worried about last Tuesday is included on every Darlings plan, starting at $9, because a companion that forgets you is not the product anyone came for.
No metered billing and no consumables
No per-token charge, no coins, no packs to top up mid-conversation. CHAI MAX Auto bills $0.66 per 1,000 tokens generated with no stated ceiling; what you pay here is a flat monthly figure you chose in advance.
One price covers every device
Darlings runs in the browser, so $9 covers an Android phone, an iPhone, a laptop and a Chromebook at once. Nothing to install, and no separate app store subscription to reconcile.
The honest part
When another app is the better choice
We would rather you find the right fit than the loudest one.
- You want 25 million user-made characters to browse. Chai library is enormous and Darlings is deliberately one companion, so if variety is the point, Chai wins outright.
- You want to pay nothing. Chai free tier really is free forever if you accept ads and the message clock, and Darlings paid plans start at $9 once your waitlist seat opens.
- You are an adult who wants unfiltered content. Chai permits NSFW and Darlings blocks it by design, so this is not a close call in either direction.
- You buy on an iPhone and take the annual. At $134.99 that is a real price for a real product, and it is $25.00 less than Chai charges on its own website.
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