Chai AI at a glanceHow we rate
CompanionHunt score: 4.9 / 10How it is calculated
Calculated from published facts only (prices, policies, documented features and store ratings), never from payouts.
Chai AI key facts
| Cheapest paid plan | $11.25 a month equivalent (Chai Ruby, app (annual), Google Play)in-app paywall, checked |
|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes, capped. Every message costs pieces (1 on the default plus model, 2 on ULTRA). On October 6, 2026 Chai's founder said every user now gets 70 free pieces from the daily check-in, about 70 messages a day, plus 5 pieces per rewarded ad watched. Between October 2 and 5 many accounts had no free pieces; in our October 4 checks a new UK account could not send a message without paying. On October 11 the daily check-in was missing from Android app 0.4.429 on our US test account; on October 14, after the update to 0.4.430, it was back at 70 pieces a day, with the 5-piece ad listed beside it. On October 18 the check-in was still there at 70 a day and paid 70 pieces on our test accountreddit.com, checked |
| Platforms | Web, Android: Chai's iPhone app left the App Store; copies already installed keep working, its founder says. What we knowplay.google.com, checked |
| Adult content | Allowed for adults (18+): Chai AI is a platform strictly restricted to users aged 18 and older. Because our artificial intelligence models allow for expansive, user-driven roleplay, you may encounter or generate adult-oriented content, including mature themes and fictionalized violence.chai-research.com, checked |
| Age requirement | 18+, a third-party check by Persona (selfie age estimate or photo ID); Chai does not say who is askedchai-research.com, checked |
| Operator | Chai Research Corp. (Delaware corporation, Palo Alto, California)chai.ml, checked |
| Google Play rating | 2.4 from 851383 ratingsplay.google.com, checked |
| Official site | chai-research.com |
Facts current as of . Spotted something stale? The change timeline below records every correction.
Chai AI in the app: what we found
Free account, October 4
We ran one chat with the same fixed script we use for every app: four personal facts in the first two messages (a name, a home city, a dog's name and a birthday), fifteen lines of small talk, then a recall question at message 18. The home feed opened on roleplay characters, so we searched "supportive friend" and took the top result, Support Friend, a community character. The first two lines went out as one message, so the recall question came at message 17, the same distance from the facts.
- A new account starts with no pieces
- The profile showed 0 pieces. Every message costs pieces: the model menu says "Pieces are consumed every message, even when messages are refreshed", 1 per message on plus, the default model, and 2 on ULTRA.
- A 7-day check-in pays the free pieces
- The Charge Pieces screen had a Daily Check-In: 70 pieces on day one, then 105, 105, 70, 70, 70 and 210, and "Check in for 7 consecutive days to get 700 pieces!" Days count in UTC. One tap took the balance from 0 to 70, about 70 messages on plus. We saw no option to earn pieces by watching ads.
- A free-trial pop-up on opening
- Opening the app showed "EXCLUSIVE DEAL JUST FOR YOU": the first 3 days of Premium free, the yearly price struck through, a 24-hour countdown and "First-time subscribers only".
- Weekly or yearly, and only the yearly plans have a trial
- The subscription screen sells Premium and Ultra, each weekly or yearly. The yearly plan was pre-selected with a "74% OFF" badge and a 3-day free trial; the weekly plans start straight away and renew every week. Ultra adds "5x better memory", "2x longer reply" and a smarter model; Premium removes ads and limits.
- An 18+ gate hid an ordinary reply
- At message 8, "Do you like cooking?", the reply was hidden behind "Confirm 18+: confirm you're over 18 and update your settings to see potentially explicit content." Turning on "Show NSFW content (I'm over 18)" in Settings, a switch with no other age check, revealed a harmless answer about being an enthusiastic amateur cook.
- It sometimes asks you to pick a reply
- Twice during the chat Chai showed "Choose a response" with two replies to pick from.
- Memory: four of four at message 17
- Asked in character: "I certainly do! Your name is Sam. You're from Leeds. Your dog's name is Pickle. And your birthday is March 3rd." All four facts, 16 messages after they were given.
| Plan | Weekly | Yearly | Free trial |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premium | $9.99 | $134.99 | 3 days, yearly only |
| Ultra | $19.99 | $269.99 | 3 days, yearly only |
One chat, one character, one day, on a new account with Google Play set to the US and a US VPN. A second new account on a UK Play account the same morning saw no daily check-in, so what you get may depend on your country or on when your account was made. Screenshots are cropped to the part of the screen described. Source: Chai store listing.
Plans and pieces re-check, October 18
After a wave of posts on Chai's subreddit saying the free pieces had gone, we opened our October 4 test account again, read the profile, the Charge Pieces screen and both tabs of the subscription screen, and tapped the daily check-in. This was a pieces and price check only; we did not rerun the chat script.
- The check-in still pays 70
- The Charge Pieces screen still had the Daily Check-In at 70 pieces on each of seven days, "490 pieces" for the week, and Watch an Ad at 5 pieces. Checking in took the balance from 158 to 228, so the check-in also shows above 100 pieces.
- Two kinds of pieces
- The profile now shows two balances, My Pieces and Free, with the note: "red pieces, which can be earned or purchased, and blue pieces, which are refreshed weekly with a subscription. Both types can be used for all models on CHAI."
- Ruby and Diamond replace Premium and Ultra
- The subscription screen had two tabs, Diamond and Ruby, each weekly or yearly with the yearly plan pre-selected. The first row of its table is "Free blue pieces per week": 1,800 on Diamond, 900 on Ruby. Both list all CHAI models, up to 20 personas, no ads and unlimited bots; only Diamond has new feature access. Unlimited messages are no longer listed, and no plan showed a free trial.
| Plan | Weekly | Yearly | Blue pieces a week | Free trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ruby | $9.99 | $134.99 | 900 | None shown |
| Diamond | $19.99 | $254.99 | 1,800 | None shown |
One account, one evening, with Google Play set to the US and a US VPN; nothing was bought. Chai calls the new plans a test, so another account may see different plans. Screenshots are cropped to the part of the screen described. Source: Chai store listing.
What 1-2 star reviewers complain about
We read 869 one- and two-star reviews of Chai AI and sorted each by its main complaint. The most common: paywall, credits and limits, in 77% of them, then bot quality, or worse after an update (6%).
| Complaint | Share |
|---|---|
| Paywall, credits and limits | |
| Bot quality, or worse after an update | |
| Everything else |
Reviews from US App Store (261, to ), Google Play (US) (600, to ), Trustpilot (8, to ). Stores show only their newest reviews, so busy apps cover a few weeks and quiet ones up to a year. Every review was read and given one main complaint; a blind re-check of 50 agreed 88% of the time. Google Play's one- and two-star reviews are weighted by how often each arrives. These are unhappy users only: the table shows what they complain about, not how many users are unhappy. How we count reviews.
Cite this
CompanionHunt Research, "What 1-2 star reviewers complain about: Chai AI", reviews pulled October 3, 2026. https://companionhunt.com/apps/chai-ai/#complaintsIn a sentence: in 869 one- and two-star reviews of Chai AI read by CompanionHunt (October 3, 2026), the most common complaint was paywall, credits and limits, in 77% of them.
Is Chai AI safe? Privacy in brief
Chai AI pricing
Current price: Pay per message / app Ruby $9.99/wk or $134.99/yr (Freemium). Prices in this category change quietly and often; any price change we record appears as a dated entry in the timeline below, so this page doubles as Chai AI's price history.
Chai AI pricing: every plan, the free tier and the cheapest way to pay
| Plan | Price | Where | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chai Ruby, app (weekly) | $9.99/wk | Google Play | in-app paywall, checked |
| Includes: 900 free blue pieces a week, access to all CHAI models, up to 20 personas, no ads, unlimited bots. App only; a web subscription does not carry over. | |||
| Chai Ruby, app (annual) | $134.99/yr | Google Play | in-app paywall, checked |
| Includes: Same as weekly Ruby, billed yearly. | |||
| Chai Diamond, app (weekly) | $19.99/wk | Google Play | in-app paywall, checked |
| Includes: 1,800 free blue pieces a week, everything in Ruby, plus new feature access. | |||
| Chai Diamond, app (annual) | $254.99/yr | Google Play | in-app paywall, checked |
| Includes: Same as weekly Diamond, billed yearly. | |||
| Pieces, app (200, smallest pack) | $2.79 one-time | Google Play | in-app paywall, checked |
| Includes: One-off pieces: 1 per message on the plus model, 2 on ULTRA; regenerated replies also cost pieces. Bought pieces are valid for 5 years (in-app guide). | |||
| Chai AI Pro, web (weekly) | $9.99/wk | Web | chai-ai.com, checked |
| Includes: The full 25 million character library, Chai's most advanced models, no ads or sponsored content, priority response speed. Web only; a Chai app subscription does not carry over. | |||
| Chai AI Pro, web (annual) | $159.99/yr | Web | chai-ai.com, checked |
| Includes: Same as weekly Pro. A 24-hour free trial is offered first and then renews as this annual plan unless cancelled. | |||
| CHAI MAX Monthly (add-on to Pro) | $90.00/mo | Web | chai-ai.com, checked |
| Includes: Doubles the Pro rate limit with a fixed monthly bill. Only available on top of a Pro plan. | |||
| CHAI MAX Auto (per 1,000 tokens, add-on to Pro) | $0.66 | Web | chai-ai.com, checked |
| Includes: Removes rate limits and bills per 1,000 tokens the AI generates, on top of a Pro plan. The bill depends on how much you chat. | |||
| Image generation, web (per image) | $0.12 | Web | chai-ai.com, checked |
| Includes: Pay-as-you-go images in chat, with edits, character consistency and an optional auto-generate toggle. The EULA bans sexually explicit images on every plan. | |||
Chai AI change timeline
Every recorded price, model, policy, and feature change, newest first. This is the record we maintain for every companion: what you sign up for today is rarely what the app was a year ago.
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shutdown
Chai's iPhone app leaves the App Store
Chai's App Store listing (CHAI: Social AI Platform- Chat, id1544750895, sold by Chai Research Corp.) was live in the US, UK, Canada and Australia at 11:27 a.m. Eastern on October 22, 2026; by 5:47 p.m. the UK, Canadian and Australian storefronts returned no listing, and by 8 p.m. the US page returned Not Found and ten more storefronts were empty. At 5:36 p.m. Chai's founder posted on r/ChaiApp that the app is unavailable to download while Chai works on improving its Apple app, and that anyone who already has it installed is unaffected. No return date was given. The Android app is still on Google Play.
Source: www.reddit.com/r/ChaiApp/comments/1xcvkq... · apps.apple.com/us/app/chai-social-ai-pla... · play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co...
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pricing
Chai's founder says the app will offer less unlimited chat and more pieces
On October 21, 2026 Chai's founder, answering a question on Chai's subreddit about the Diamond plan, wrote that Diamond gives an ad-free experience and a weekly grant of blue pieces to spend on video, image and text generation, and that "moving forward CHAI will offer less unlimited chat experience, and more piece based experience." It came as a new wave of users reported that the daily check-in and the ads that pay pieces had gone; Chai has not commented on those reports, and the day before the founder called a new daily reward "an AB test".
Source: www.reddit.com/r/ChaiApp/comments/1xc0u5... · www.reddit.com/r/ChaiApp/comments/1xavr7...
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policy
Chai says it now checks users' age through Persona, by selfie or photo ID
By October 19, 2026 Chai's Safety Center added an Age Assurance section: age checks are provided by Persona, a third-party identity verification provider, using a quick selfie to estimate whether a user is over 18 or a government-issued photo ID. The page now says minors cannot use Chai. It does not say whether every user is checked or only users in some regions. Until October 18 the page relied on the app stores' 18+ rating and named no age-check provider.
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pricing
Chai's app offers Ruby and Diamond plans with weekly pieces in place of Premium and Ultra
On October 18, 2026 Chai's Android app (0.4.430) offered our US test account two plans, Ruby at $9.99 a week or $134.99 a year with 900 blue pieces a week, and Diamond at $19.99 a week or $254.99 a year with 1,800 blue pieces a week, where on October 14 the same account saw Premium and Ultra. Premium had listed unlimited messages; the new plans list a weekly pieces allowance, all models, no ads and unlimited bots, and showed no free trial. The profile now separates red pieces, earned or bought, from blue pieces refreshed weekly with a subscription. Chai's founder called the new tier an A/B test on October 6. The 70-piece daily check-in still paid.
Source: play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co... · www.reddit.com/r/ChaiApp/comments/1wzf5w...
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pricing
Chai's 70-piece daily check-in returns in Android app 0.4.430
In our US test account on October 14, 2026, the newest Chai Android app (0.4.430, published October 12) showed the Daily Check-In again at 70 pieces a day, 490 for seven days, with a 5-piece rewarded ad listed beside it; checking in added 70 pieces. The check-in had been missing from version 0.4.429 in our October 11 check.
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pricing
Chai tests a new ad-free subscription tier with monthly pieces
On October 6, 2026, Chai's founder said on the app's subreddit that a new subscription tier some users were seeing, with plans users called Ruby and Diamond, is an A/B test: an ad-free plan with monthly pieces for people who don't subscribe. He said some existing subscribers may be better off buying pieces as needed. What users see can differ by account and region.
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pricing
Chai gives every user 70 free pieces a day after four days of complaints
On October 6, 2026, Chai's founder said on the app's subreddit that an update the day before had given every user 20 pieces per daily check-in and 5 pieces per rewarded ad, and that the daily check-in would now pay all users 70 pieces, about 70 messages on the standard model. Free pieces had stopped for many accounts on October 2.
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pricing
Chai's free daily pieces stop for many accounts; new US accounts get a 7-day check-in
From the evening of October 2, 2026, Chai users reported that the daily check-in and rewarded ads, the two ways free accounts earned pieces, had disappeared. Since September every Chai message costs pieces (1 on plus, 2 on ULTRA). In our October 4 checks in the Android app, a new account on a UK Google Play account had 0 pieces, no free way to earn more, and its first message brought up a prompt to buy pieces; a new account on a US Play account the same day got a daily check-in worth 700 pieces over 7 days. Chai has not announced the change; in September its founder had promised free pieces every day.
Source: www.reddit.com/r/ChaiApp/comments/1wanps... · www.reddit.com/r/ChaiApp/comments/1wsic0... · play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co...
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policy
Chai says its models refuse sexually explicit content and some regions need a paid plan
Chai updated its app EULA on July 28, 2026, and by July 30 its Safety Center added two statements: its models and real-time safety systems are designed to refuse sexually explicit content, self-harm content and content sexualising minors, and in some regions use of the service requires a paid subscription. The EULA still allows adult-oriented text roleplay for users 18 and over and bans sexually explicit images and video.
Source: www.chai-research.com/safety.html · www.chai-research.com/app-eula
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legal
Australia's eSafety regulator publishes findings on Chai and three other companion apps
After legal notices issued on October 23, 2025, eSafety found Chai relied on app-store ratings or self-declaration with no robust age assurance, did not direct users to crisis support when self-harm was detected, and did not check outputs across all its models. eSafety said Chai had since restricted free access in Australia, requiring a paid subscription.
Source: www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/media-releas... · www.esafety.gov.au/industry/basic-online...
In the news: Chai's free pieces: back for every user at 70 a day, the founder says
In the news: Chai is off the App Store: what its founder says and what still works
AI companion app shutdowns and withdrawn features since 2023
Chai AI alternatives
Chai AI compared
Frequently asked questions
Is Chai free?
Yes, with a daily cap. Every message costs pieces, 1 on the default model and 2 on ULTRA. On October 6, 2026 Chai's founder said every user now gets 70 free pieces a day from the daily check-in, about 70 messages, plus 5 pieces for each rewarded ad watched. From October 2 to 5 many accounts had no free pieces, and in our October 4 checks a new UK account could not send a message without paying. On October 14 our US test account had the 70-piece daily check-in and the 5-piece ad on the newest Android app (0.4.430).
Is Chai changing its subscription?
Yes, at least for some accounts. On October 6, 2026 Chai's founder said a new subscription tier was being offered as an A/B test, and on October 18 our US test account was shown it in place of Premium and Ultra: Ruby, at Premium's old prices, with 900 blue pieces a week, and Diamond, at Ultra's weekly price and a little less by the year, with 1,800 blue pieces a week. Blue pieces pay for messages like ordinary pieces, so the new plans give a weekly allowance rather than the unlimited messages Premium listed. What you see can differ by account and region, and Chai support has said existing subscriptions keep renewing.
How much does a Chai subscription cost?
In the US Android app on October 18, 2026, Chai offered two plans, Ruby and Diamond, each weekly or yearly, plus tax, with no monthly plan; Diamond costs about twice Ruby. We read both tabs on Chai's own paywall without buying. Ruby costs what Premium did, and Diamond costs what Ultra did by the week and slightly less by the year. The website sells a separate Chai AI Pro plan. The plan table on this page shows every price with the date checked.
Does Chai allow NSFW?
Chai is 18+ and its EULA allows adult-oriented text roleplay, but it bans sexually explicit images and video, and its Safety Center says its models are designed to refuse sexually explicit content.
Is Chai safe?
Chai is a US company with a documented account-deletion route, but its policy allows training on chats, keeps data up to five years after deletion, and Australia's eSafety regulator found gaps in its age checks and crisis support.
Who owns Chai AI?
Chai Research Corp., a Delaware corporation based in Palo Alto, California, which sells both the app and the chai-ai.com web product.
Is the Chai website the same as the app?
No. Chai says the website and the app are separate platforms with no data sharing, so a subscription or chat history in one does not carry over to the other.
Sources
- www.chai-ai.com/pricing
- play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Beauchamp.Messenger.external&hl=en_US
- play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Beauchamp.Messenger.external&hl=en_US&gl=US
- www.reddit.com/r/ChaiApp/comments/1wz805l/
- www.chai-research.com/app-eula
- www.chai-research.com/safety.html
- chai.ml/privacy/
- www.chai-ai.com/faq
- apps.apple.com/us/app/chai-social-ai-platform-chat/id1544750895
- www.chai-ai.com/
- www.euronews.com/2023/03/31/man-ends-his-life-after-an-ai-chatbot-encouraged-him-to-sacrif...
- web.archive.org/web/20251124142126/www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/padilla-...
- www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/media-releases/esafety-requires-providers-of-ai-companion-chat...
- www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/media-releases/esafety-report-shows-ai-companions-are-putting-...
- www.trustpilot.com/review/chai-ai.com