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Almost every companion app claims a free tier; very few are usable free every day. Free tiers in this category also mutate constantly, with message caps, ads, and feature removals arriving without notice. This page ranks the options that are genuinely free for daily use, and the change timeline on each app's page records every time a free tier gets better or worse. October 2026 shows how fast it moves: Kindroid retired its free Lite tier on October 1, and Chai's free pieces have come and gone more than once since October 2, and its founder now says every user gets 70 a day. Our September 2026 roundup gathers the month before.
★★★★½ 4.5 App Store · Free / $12.99/mo · Web, iOS, Android
A community character platform where the chat itself is unlimited on the free tier, running a standard model with a shorter context. Its content policy permits adult content between consenting adult characters, and you can connect your own model provider through a proxy. The janitor+ subscription is its only paid plan.
Read the Janitor AI review · Visit Janitor AI
★★★★½ 4.3 App Store · Free / $4.99/mo · Web, iOS, Android
The largest character-chat platform, home to millions of user-made characters, with voice calls, group chats and in-chat images. Its Community Guidelines prohibit pornographic content for everyone, and since late 2025 users under 18 can no longer have open-ended chats. The free tier allows unlimited chats with ads and slow mode; c.ai lite and c.ai+ cut the ads and add memory.
Read the Character AI review · Visit Character AI
★★½ 2.4 App Store · Pay per message / app Ruby $9.99/wk or $134.99/yr · Web, Android
Chai Research's character-chat platform, with more than 25 million user-created characters by its own count. Chai's terms restrict it to adults and allow adult-oriented text, while explicit images and video are not allowed. It runs on Android; its iPhone app left the App Store on October 22, 2026, though installed copies keep working. A separate Chai Web Pro service has its own subscription.
Read the Chai AI review · Visit Chai AI
★★ 2.1 App Store · Free / $5.95/mo · Web, Android
A web-based character chat platform from NextDay AI in Montreal, built around uncensored roleplay for adults with a large community library. Apple removed its iOS app in August 2025, so it runs in the browser or as an Android app downloaded from its own site. Paid tiers add a longer context window, conversation images and, on the top tier, text-to-speech voices.
Read the SpicyChat AI review · Visit SpicyChat AI
ChatGPT
Unranked (general-purpose LLM) · Free / Plus $20.00/mo · Web, iOS, Android
OpenAI's general-purpose assistant, which many people also use as a companion. Memory that persists across chats, custom instructions and voice mode support that use, but OpenAI markets it as a productivity tool, its Model Spec rules out erotica, and when OpenAI retires a model, conversations move to a newer one with a different manner.
Read the ChatGPT review · Visit ChatGPT
Gemini
Unranked (general-purpose LLM) · Free / $4.99/mo · Web, iOS, Android
Google's assistant, built into Android and the Google app, which makes it the easiest of these to reach for anyone already using Google. Gemini Live handles spoken conversation and the free tier includes it. Google's policy prohibits sexually explicit content, and its own framing is an assistant rather than a companion.
Read the Gemini review · Visit Gemini
DeepSeek
Unranked (general-purpose LLM) · Free · Web, iOS, Android
A general-purpose assistant with no consumer subscription at all: the app and website are entirely free. It has no memory feature, no voice mode and no companion features, its terms ban sexual content, and its privacy policy says data is stored in China and chats may train its models unless you opt out.
Read the DeepSeek review · Visit DeepSeek
Pi
Unranked (general-purpose LLM) · Free · Web, iOS, Android
Inflection AI's personal assistant, the general-purpose model built most like a companion: a conversational style, a voice mode and memory across chats. Pi is entirely free, with no paid tier, and its terms prohibit sexually explicit content.
Read the Pi review · Visit Pi| App | Cheapest plan | Free tier | Platforms | 18+ | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Janitor AI | $8.25/mo | Lite | Web, iOS, Android | Yes | 7.3/10 |
| Character AI | $4.99/mo | Lite | Web, iOS, Android | No | 8.4/10 |
| Chai AI | $11.25/mo | Limited | Web, Android | Yes | 4.9/10 |
| SpicyChat AI | $5.00/mo | Lite | Web, Android | Yes | 7.1/10 |
| ChatGPT | $20.00/mo | Limited | Web, iOS, Android | No | Not rated: general‑purpose AI |
| Gemini | $4.99/mo | Limited | Web, iOS, Android | No | Not rated: general‑purpose AI |
| DeepSeek | n/a | Full | Web, iOS, Android | No | Not rated: general‑purpose AI |
| Pi | n/a | Full | Web, iOS, Android | No | Not rated: general‑purpose AI |
Every price is dated on the app's review. Scores follow our published rubric.
Pi has no paid tier at all, and DeepSeek has no consumer subscription. Among purpose-built companion apps, Character AI and Janitor AI both allow unlimited chats on their free tiers, on lighter terms than their paid plans.