AI companion apps nearly all use the same two-part pricing: a subscription that unlocks unlimited chat, and tokens that pay for the expensive stuff like images, voice messages and video. The subscription is the number on the pricing page. The tokens are where your actual monthly spend is decided.
I’ll use Candy.ai as the worked example because it publishes clear prices and it’s the app I rank first. The same logic applies to almost every competitor.
The subscription: pay yearly or pay triple
Candy.ai Premium costs $13.99 month to month. Commit for three months and it drops to $8.99 a month. Commit for a year and it is $3.99 a month, billed as $47.88 up front.
Show as a table
| Item | Per month |
|---|---|
| Month to month | $13.99 |
| Quarterly | $8.99 |
| Annual | $3.99 |
Source: Candy.ai pricing page, September 2026.
That is a 71% discount for committing. The catch is obvious: you pay for a year even if you lose interest in a month. If you are not sure, the sensible path is the free tier first, then one month, then the annual plan once you know you will keep using it.
Tokens: the part that actually varies
Premium on Candy.ai includes 100 tokens a month. Images, voice and video spend them, and extra packs start at $9.99 for 100 tokens.
How much that matters depends entirely on how you use it. Here are three illustrative monthly budgets built from the published prices:
- Subscription
- Extra tokens
Show as a table
| Row | Subscription | Extra tokens | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mostly chat | $3.99 | $0.00 | $3.99 |
| Chat + some images | $3.99 | $9.99 | $13.98 |
| Image-heavy, monthly plan | $13.99 | $39.96 | $53.95 |
Source: My scenarios: annual plan with included tokens only; annual plan plus one $9.99 top-up; monthly plan plus four $9.99 top-ups.
The spread is the whole story. Someone who mainly chats pays less than a coffee a month. Someone who generates a lot of images on a monthly plan can pay more than a premium porn membership. Reviewers who use these apps heavily commonly report spending $15 to $40 a month on tokens on top of the subscription.
What to check before you subscribe to any AI companion
- What the free tier really includes. Some “free” tiers allow only a handful of messages.
- What costs tokens. Images almost always do. Voice and video usually do. Some apps charge tokens for long messages.
- Whether tokens expire at the end of a billing period.
- How cancelling works. The best apps let you cancel in two clicks and keep access until the end of the period.
- Whether you can delete your chats. Your conversations are stored to power the character’s memory. Make sure you can wipe them.
- How it bills. Most bill under a neutral company name. Check if it matters to you.
If you want more control than chat
If you are more interested in creating images and video than in conversation, a generator-first app will give you more for your money.
Every app I rank is on my AI girlfriend tier list, and the image-first tools are on my AI porn generator list.
