What 61 apps actually charge and offer, measured 2026-08-13
Every figure below is counted from our own directory of 61 active apps, not quoted from someone else's report. The method is at the bottom, including what these numbers do not tell you. Written by David Thompson. Found an error? Tell us.
A free tier is close to table stakes in this category. What differs enormously is what the free tier actually contains: for some it is a usable product with capped extras, for others it is a short trial before a wall. The headline number tells you the door is open, not how far you get through it.
The cheapest way into a paid plan is typically about $9.99 a month, and the middle of the whole monthly market sits near $13.66. The gap between those two is the upsell: most apps have a higher tier where the limits actually lift.
One thing worth knowing if you compare prices elsewhere: figures that average every plan together are close to meaningless here, because one-off credit packs in this category run into the hundreds and drag any average with them. The numbers above are monthly plans only.
The shape of the pricing tells you as much as the number. An app with one paid tier is selling access; an app with several, plus credits on the side, is selling consumption, and the second model is where a bill quietly grows. Yearly plans are the other thing to watch: where they exist they are usually the only way the advertised monthly price is real.
These two are not competing halves of the market: a large share of apps ship both looks and let you pick per character. Treat this pair as the softest numbers on the page. Anime comes from a category flag on the record, but there is no matching flag for realistic, so that one is read from how each app describes itself. An app that offers realistic characters without using the word will not be counted.
Share of the 59 apps that name each capability among their headline features:
Image generation leads, and roleplay is close behind, which matches where the money in this category has gone. Long-term memory sits near the bottom, and that gap is the most interesting thing on this page: memory is the feature people complain about most in reviews and the one fewest apps put front and centre.
The dataset is our own directory: 61 apps listed as active, of which 35 publish enough pricing detail to count and 59 list their features. Figures are recomputed from that dataset rather than typed in, so the page and the directory cannot disagree.
How we gather and check this, and how affiliate relationships are handled, is on the editorial process page.