Here are the advertised monthly prices for the apps we track:
| App | Advertised price per month | Free version |
|---|---|---|
| Sweetdream | US$10.00 | Yes |
| Candy AI | US$12.99 | Yes |
| Nomi | US$15.99 | Yes |
| Replika | US$19.99 | Yes |
All four apps bill in US dollars, so your card may add a currency conversion fee on top. Those are the figures on the pricing pages, and four things regularly get added to them.
1. A discounted start that isn't the real price
What you see at checkout is often a first-period deal, with renewal at the full rate. Nobody's breaking the rules and nothing's buried. It's just that you compare apps at the very moment each one is showing you the lowest figure it'll ever charge.
To protect yourself, compare renewal prices only, and put the renewal date in your calendar the day you sign up.
2. Credits stacked on the subscription
This is where the bill and the expectation drift furthest apart. In quite a few apps the subscription pays for chatting, while images and voice come out of a separate balance. A US$12 plan paired with a heavy image habit can easily cost more than a US$20 plan that includes media.
So don't just ask whether an app can generate images, because they all can. Ask whether images are covered by the plan or drawn from a balance you top up. Candy AI bundles chat, images and voice into one subscription, and that's the main reason it leads our ranking, rather than any one feature being the best around.
3. The feature you want sits a tier higher
Voice calls, longer memory, quicker replies and video are the usual things locked behind a higher tier. The price you see is for the entry level, and the feature that got you interested often isn't in it.
Open the tier table, find the exact line you came for, and price that tier. If the app doesn't publish a tier table, read the advertised price as a minimum, not as the cost.
4. Annual plans: cheaper, but riskier
Paying yearly usually knocks 30-50% off the monthly rate. It also ties you to a product that can change after you've paid: models get swapped, filters get adjusted, and the character you loved in March might not be the one you've got in September.
Go monthly to start, and only move to yearly after a month you truly enjoyed. That order costs you least. We weigh it up in monthly, annual or credits.
So what's the cheapest way in?
Sweetdream at US$10.00 has the lowest advertised price of the apps we test, and it also has the free version we rate best. That makes it the cheapest sensible way to try the category, not just the lowest number.
The costliest mistake isn't choosing the wrong app. It's paying for twelve months of one you used for four days. Everything else here is small change by comparison, and the rest of the sums are in the hidden costs guide.
