Tolan pricing
How much does Tolan cost? Tolan app cost, price and subscription tiers
Tolan is free to download and charges through in-app memberships. On the US App Store on September 4, 2026, the only membership Tolan does not label Old is Tolan Lite at $11.99, next to a $2.99 Relay Boost and eight retired tiers between $4.99 and $69.99. Apple never publishes the billing period and tolans.com lists no prices at all, so nothing public tells you whether $11.99 buys a week, a month or a year.
Last updated September 2026
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Wholesome, 13 and up.
This question is unusually hard to answer, and it is worth knowing why before you trust any number you read. Tolan does not publish prices anywhere on its own website. tolans.com is a single App Store button and a product story, with no pricing page, no plan names and no dollar figures. The company behind it, AQP, Inc. under the Portola brand, has never posted a price list. That leaves exactly one public source: the in-app purchase list Apple prints at the bottom of the App Store listing.
So we read that listing directly rather than repeating what other articles say. The result is more interesting than a single number. Tolan itself marks eight of its ten visible in-app purchases with the word Old, which is how a developer signals a legacy tier that existing subscribers still hold but new users cannot buy. The prices most articles quote, roughly $4.99 a week and around $70 a year, are in that retired group. Below is every entry we could read on September 4, 2026, what each one appears to be, and what the same money buys elsewhere in the category.
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| Darlings | Tolan | |
|---|---|---|
| Price published on the company website | Yes, three plans listed openly at darlings.ai/pricing | No, tolans.com shows no prices at all |
| Billing period visible before you pay | Yes, monthly or yearly, stated on the plan | No, Apple lists in-app purchase prices without periods |
| Entry price | $9 a month, or $7.50 a month billed yearly | Tolan Lite Membership listed at $11.99, period not disclosed |
| Top tier | Circle at $39 a month, or $32.50 billed yearly | Upper Plus tier exists but its listed price moved between September 2 and September 4, 2026 |
| One-off consumables | None, nothing to top up | 1 Relay Boost at $2.99 |
| Retired tiers still on the listing | None | Eight, from $4.99 to $69.99, all labelled Old by Tolan |
| Free way in | Free demo in the browser, no card and no account | Limited free trial in-app, extendable by completing tasks |
| Can you buy it today | Not yet. Darlings is onboarding from a waitlist, and these are the launch prices | Yes, on iPhone |
| Platforms your money covers | Any browser: Android, iPhone, Windows, Mac, Chromebook | iPhone only, no Android and no web version |
| Memory included at the entry price | Yes, persistent memory on every plan | Yes, your Tolan builds memory as you talk |
| Romance or NSFW upsells | None at any price, by design | None, Tolan is explicitly non-romantic too |
| Store rating | Not in an app store, it is a web app | 4.78 from 176,469 US ratings, one of the highest in the category |
| Age rating | Wholesome by design, minimum age 13 | 12+ on the US App Store |
| Listed seller | Darlings, operated directly at darlings.ai | AQP, Inc. |
Tolan figures read directly from the Tolan: Your Friendly Guide listing on the US App Store on September 4, 2026. Apple prints in-app purchase names and prices but not billing periods, so every Tolan figure on this page is a listed price, not a confirmed monthly rate.
The full list
Every Tolan in-app purchase visible on the US App Store, read September 4, 2026
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| In-app purchase | Listed price | What it appears to be |
|---|---|---|
| Tolan Lite Membership | $11.99 | The only membership Tolan does not label Old, so the current entry tier |
| 1 Relay Boost | $2.99 | A one-off consumable that extends chat time, not a subscription |
| Tolan Lite Membership (Old) | $9.99 and $39.99 | Retired Lite pricing, most likely a monthly and a longer term |
| Tolan Plus Membership (Old) | $4.99, $6.99, $14.99 and $69.99 | Retired Plus tiers across several durations |
| Tolan Membership (Old) | $49.99 | A retired single membership from before the Lite and Plus split |
| Darlings, for comparison | $9, $19 or $39 a month | Companion, Plus and Circle, billed monthly or yearly, free demo first |
Apple shows at most ten in-app purchases on a web listing, and which ten appear rotates. On September 2, 2026 that list also carried a Tolan Plus Membership at $24.99 with no Old label; on September 4 it is not visible while a Tolan Plus Membership (Old) at $14.99 is. Treat the upper tier as real but unconfirmed in price, and check it inside the app before you subscribe.
Cost comparison
What a wholesome AI companion actually costs, cheapest transparent price first
Ranked by what you can verify before handing over money, not by what a company hints at. Every figure below was read from the app's own US App Store listing on September 4, 2026, or from the company's public pricing page where one exists.
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1
Pi
Best for spending nothing at all · Free, no paid tier
Genuinely free with a good web version, and the gentlest general assistant in this group. The catch is direction: Inflection moved to enterprise work and deprioritised the consumer product, so Pi receives little development and does not build a long-term picture of your life the way a companion app does. Fine for conversation, not for continuity.
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2
Snapchat My AI
Best for a free chat inside an app you already have · Free
Free and already installed for most people under 30. Snap's own help centre states that My AI will not remember details from your prior conversations over time, which is the whole reason it costs nothing. It never becomes a companion that knows you, so it is not really competing with a paid membership.
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3
Darlings
Best for knowing the period and the total before you pay · $9 a month, or $90 a year at $7.50 a month
Our own app, and it is placed here on one measurable criterion: the price, the billing period and the annual total are all published on the website before you create anything. Persistent memory and daily check-ins are on every plan rather than sold as an upgrade, and it runs in a browser, so the same money covers Android, iPhone and a laptop. The honest caveat: you cannot buy it today. Darlings is onboarding from a waitlist and these are the prices we intend to launch with.
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4
Character.AI
Best for the cheapest paid entry point in the category · Character.AI Lite $2.49, Character.AI+ $9.99, annual $94.99
The lowest listed paid tier of any large companion app, and the annual is the best value on this page at $94.99. Two things to weigh. It sells no persistent memory at any price, so paying does not buy a companion that remembers your life, and it is rated 17+ with open-ended chat removed for under-18 accounts by late 2025. character.ai/pricing returns a 404, so the App Store listing is again the only public source.
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5
Tolan
Best for a playful, explicitly non-romantic character on iPhone · Tolan Lite Membership listed at $11.99, period not disclosed
The product is well liked, at 4.78 from 176,469 US ratings and rated 12+, which is unusual in a category that mostly sits at 17+. The pricing is the weak point rather than the app. No published price list, no billing period on the listing, eight retired tiers still showing, and an upper tier whose listed price moved between two readings two days apart. You will not know your monthly cost until you are inside the purchase sheet.
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6
Nomi
Best for the strongest memory if you are an adult · Launch Plan Monthly $9.99, Standard $15.99, Standard Yearly $99.99
The Launch Plan at $9.99 is the quiet bargain of the category and almost no roundup mentions it. Included here for price comparison rather than as a step across from Tolan: it is 17+, permissive about adult content, and its App Store listing carries a Sexual Content or Nudity descriptor. If Tolan appealed because it was wholesome, this is the opposite end.
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7
Chai
Best for nothing on price · Premium $13.99 monthly or $134.99 annual, Ultra $29.99 monthly or $269.99 annual
Worth listing because it shows how expensive this category gets. Chai Ultra is $29.99 a month or $269.99 a year, and long-term memory is gated behind that top tier rather than included. There is also a $19.99 weekly Ultra option, which annualises to over $1,000. Chai carries ads on Google Play even though it charges.
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8
Kindroid
Best for nobody who is watching cost · $15.99, three months $42.99, yearly $159.99
The most expensive annual plan of any app on this page at $159.99, which works out to $13.33 a month, and the tiers climb to Ultra at $28.99 and MAX at $68.99. It is also the highest rated at 4.78 from 8,230 US ratings, so people are clearly getting something for it. kindroid.ai/pricing sits behind a login wall, so the App Store listing is the only public source here too.
Apple lists in-app purchase prices without billing periods, so a $15.99 entry may be weekly, monthly or annual. Where a company publishes its own pricing page, that is quoted instead because it is the only place a period is stated.
Why people switch
What makes Darlings different
A price you can read before you sign up
Three plans, the monthly figure, the yearly total and the effective monthly rate, all on one public page. No purchase sheet required to find out what you are agreeing to.
Memory is included, not an upsell
Several apps in this category charge extra for a companion that remembers you. Persistent memory of your people, your week and your story is on every Darlings plan, including the cheapest.
One price covers every device
Darlings runs in the browser, so $9 covers your Android phone, your iPhone, your laptop and a Chromebook at once. Nothing to install and no second purchase to switch platforms.
No consumables and no boosts
No coins, no credits, no chat-time boosts to top up mid-conversation. What you pay monthly is what it costs, and you can stop whenever you want.
The honest part
When another app is the better choice
We would rather you find the right fit than the loudest one.
- You own an iPhone and you want the animated alien character, which is the whole appeal for a lot of people and nothing else in the category copies it.
- You want to buy today. Tolan is on sale in the App Store right now; Darlings is still onboarding from a waitlist.
- You are happy to check the price inside the app. Tolan's free trial lets you try before the paywall, and its 4.78 rating suggests most payers feel it was worth it.
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