Companion Chatbot Guide: What They Do and What They Cost

A companion chatbot is a chat app built around a character that's meant to feel like a relationship rather than a tool. Underneath, it's four things. A rented language model, a character description, a memory layer, and a set of extras like voice and pictures that are metered separately.

That's the whole product, and here's the direct answer on cost, since that's what I'd want first. Every major companion chatbot has a free tier, but "free" means something different on each. Kindroid gives you unlimited messages on a smaller model. Nomi gives you 50 messages a day forever. Character.AI gives you the full library with ads and a slow mode. Replika gives you chat and holds back the romantic status. Candy gives you five messages, total. Paid plans on the US App Store and the vendors' own pages today run from $7.99 to $19.99 a month, annual plans cut that roughly in half, and most apps sell a second currency on top for images, voice and extra slots. The law is arriving too. A Congressional Research Service report from August counts more than ten states with chatbot laws, most taking effect in 2027, and the FTC has had orders out to seven companies since last September.

Every price and limit below was read from the app's own page or its US App Store listing on 15 September 2026. The definitions and the regulatory picture come from the CRS report of 14 August 2026 and the FTC's own release.

What a Companion Chatbot Is, in the Government's Words

The two strongest pages ranking for this term are a policy report and an advocacy guide, and between them they define the category better than any vendor does.

The CRS report says a chatbot is "an application or a program that simulates human conversation by generating responses to user prompts", and that chatbots have existed for about 60 years, with ELIZA in 1966 running on decision trees and keyword matching. What changed in the last decade is the model. Modern chatbots run on large language models, fine-tuned on human feedback, and the report's line between a general-purpose chatbot and a companion is purpose. A companion chatbot "is designed to foster a personal, ongoing relationship through responses to user prompts, primarily via a virtual, text-based interface", with Character.AI and Replika as the named examples.

Congress is trying to write that down as law, and the bill language is the clearest definition you'll find. One House bill would cover "any software-based artificial intelligence system or program that exists for the primary purpose of simulating emotional interaction, friendship, companionship, or therapeutic communication with a user". A Senate bill would catch anything that "simulates a sustained interpersonal relationship or emotional interaction with the user", including by showing "persistent responses suggesting affection or attachment" or presenting "at least one persistent identity, persona, or character". Read those two sentences and you've got the category. A persona that persists, and responses that sound attached. I think that's a better definition than any vendor's homepage offers, and I'd use it to decide whether a general chatbot you already pay for is quietly doing the same job.

The usage figures the report cites are worth having once. A Pew survey from June found one in ten US adults uses a chatbot for emotional support or advice and one in 25 for companionship. Companion apps had been downloaded 220 million times by July 2025. Twelve percent of teens used one for emotional or mental health support. Character.AI reported more than 20 million monthly active users in 2025. And the report's own caveat is the one I'd keep. "Much of what is known about these interactions is from short-term studies or company disclosures."

What It's Made Of, and Where the Meter Sits

The explainers stop at the definition. What they don't say is that each of the four parts is a separate line on the bill, and in my experience of reading these price pages, knowing which part you're paying for is most of understanding the price.

Compiled from each vendor's own page or App Store listing on 2026-09-15.

Two of those rows explain most of the pricing you'll see, and they're the two I'd read first. The model row is why free tiers feel worse than paid ones even when the message count is generous, because the free tier is often a different model, not a rationed one. Kindroid says so in plain text. The memory row is why the top tiers get expensive. Kindroid's own document says "serving higher context/memory is directly related to the cost", and prices MAX at $98.97 a month on web against $13.99 for Standard, with the explanation that the tiers "cover our costs for dedicated servers rather than generate profit". Which vendors document their memory, and what each lets you read or pin, is compared in the realism-by-documentation piece.

What They Cost Today

From each vendor's page or its US App Store listing, read 2026-09-15. Where Apple lists two entries at the same tier name, both are given, because Apple doesn't say which one you'll be shown.

Three things I'd take from that table.

The monthly range is narrow and the annual range isn't. Seven apps, monthly entry points from $7.99 to $19.99. Annual plans from $47.88 to $159.99. Candy's annual plan at $47.88 works out to 29 percent of twelve months at its own monthly price, while Chai's annual at $134.99 is 80 percent of twelve monthlies. Same category, opposite discount policies, and the annual price is where I'd compare them.

The free tiers aren't comparable, and the vendors say so if you read them. Nomi's is a daily count. Kindroid's is a model downgrade. Character.AI's is ads plus a queue. Candy's is a demonstration. OurDream's is a coin you can't buy more of without paying. Which free tiers let you use the product for real, and what happens to your data when you leave, is worked through in the free companion tiers audit.

And the second currency is where the number on the plan screen stops being the price. Nomi credits, Charms, gems, tokens, dreamcoins and Pieces all buy the extras row, and an app whose top single purchase is $99.99 has built itself for people who'll spend that. My rule is to treat the subscription as the floor and the largest pack on the listing as the ceiling.

The Rules That Are Arriving

The CRS report reads like a warning, and what I respect about it is that the warning is documented rather than asserted. The report links companion use to "psychological distress, addictive behaviors, emotional dependence or manipulation, and privacy and security risks", cites a 2025 study in which several chatbots "discouraged users from ending the conversation", and notes that some developers train on user inputs and that 300,000 conversations with one general-purpose chatbot leaked in 2025.

What's actually in force or on the way, from the report and the FTC's own release.

Compiled from CRS R49189 (14 August 2026) and the FTC release of 11 September 2025.

The report's summary of the federal baseline is one sentence. "The United States does not have a comprehensive data privacy law." So for an adult in most states, what a companion app may do with a chat is governed by its own privacy policy and whatever state law applies, which is the reason I read the policies on this site rather than the landing pages.

Questions

What are companion chatbots? Chat apps built around a persistent character designed to feel like a relationship. The CRS report's phrase is "a personal, ongoing relationship" through a text interface, and the bills in Congress add "persistent identity, persona, or character" and "responses suggesting affection or attachment".

Is there a free AI companion? Yes, on every app in the table, but the free tiers meter different things. If you want to use one for real without paying, Nomi's 50 messages a day and Kindroid's unlimited Lite are the two designed to be lived in. Candy's five messages and OurDream's coin-per-chat are previews.

What is the best AI chatbot for companionship? My answer is the one that documents its memory, because memory is what makes a companion feel continuous and it's the part vendors most often describe with adjectives. Kindroid and Nomi publish how theirs works. The comparison is linked above.

Why was Replika shut down? It wasn't. Replika is on the App Store today at version 12 with an 18+ rating. The question likely comes from February 2023, when, per press coverage summarised in the Replika documents review, Italy's data regulator ordered the service to stop processing Italian users' data and the company removed erotic roleplay within days, restoring it in May for accounts created before the ban. A feature was removed, for everyone, because of one country's regulator, and that's the episode people remember as a shutdown.

Is Replika safe to use? It's rated 18+, filed under Health & Fitness, and its help centre says free access "may be denied at Replika's discretion". What its privacy policy keeps, and for how long, is a separate question the Replika review covers, and I'd read that section before deciding. The CRS report's safety section applies to the whole category and doesn't single Replika out.

What is the AI companion app for adults? All of the apps above carry an 18+ rating on the App Store. The subset built for adult content is a different shelf, and the CRS report names Candy and SpicyChat as examples. Which of those apps read your chats, train on them, and let you delete them is compared in the adult companion privacy audit.

What I'd Do Before Paying

Work out which of the four parts you're actually buying. If it's the model, Kindroid tells you what the free one is. If it's memory, read the documentation first, and I'd treat an app without any as a monthly rental rather than a relationship. If it's pictures or voice, the second currency is your real bill and the subscription is the entry fee.

Then price the annual plan against twelve monthlies, because the gap runs from a fifth off to seven-tenths off depending on the app, and the store lists both. I wouldn't buy a year of anything in this category before a month of it, whatever the discount badge says.

Then read the privacy policy before typing anything you'd mind a company training on, since the federal baseline is that there isn't one, and the rules the states are writing mostly start in 2027.