Disclosure: this guide is published by the makers of My Softly, which is one of the five alternatives below.
The short answer. Character.AI's free tier now runs adverts, including full-screen ones during a conversation, and ads have become the most common complaint in its recent 1- and 2-star App Store reviews. You can remove them with c.ai+ ($9.99 a month). Or you can move to an app that is not paid for by ads at all: Pi is free, and Replika, Nomi, Kindroid and My Softly are paid for by subscription. My Softly, which is ours, has no ads anywhere in the app. Those five are companion apps, built around one ongoing friend rather than a library of characters, which is the real choice to make before you switch.
Why people look for a Character.AI alternative without ads
Character.AI is free, enormous and creative, and for years the price of that was a queue at busy times. In 2026 the price became adverts. The free plan shows banner ads on the home screen and, from around April 2026, full-screen ads during conversations, according to reviewers who track the app's pricing. Character.AI's own US App Store listing now names Third-Party Advertising in its privacy label, and it sells a paid tier whose clearest benefit is that the ads go away.
The reviews show how much that lands. We counted every 1- and 2-star review in Apple's public US App Store review feed for Character.AI, which returns an app's 500 most recent reviews. From August 30 to September 15, 2026 there were 310 of them, and we sorted each by its main complaint:
- Ads: 28%, the most common single complaint.
- Price, limits and the subscription: 17%.
- A change in how the characters write: 10%.
- Bugs or login trouble: 7%.
- Filters too strict: 7%.
- Forgetting: 1%.
Those 16 days describe the recent mood, not a long record, because Character.AI gets so many reviews that 500 of them cover barely two weeks. The same count for other apps, and how we did it, is in our AI companion statistics. The point for this guide is simple: when people are unhappy with Character.AI right now, the ads are the first thing they name.
Why is Character.AI so bad now?
It is not bad at what it was built for. It is still the largest library of user-made characters there is, it is still free, and for imaginative roleplay nothing else has the range. What has changed is the deal around it, and the low-star reviews point at four things.
- The ads. Covered above. For many long-time users this is the change that turned a free hobby into an interrupted one.
- More of it is paid. There are now two paid tiers, c.ai+ and a newer Lite tier, plus Charms, an in-app currency sold in packs for extras. The free plan now has daily limits on some features, which the paid tiers raise.
- The writing changed. One low-star review in ten says the characters no longer write the way they used to. That is the usual cost of a model update, and every app in this category gets the same complaint after one.
- Memory belongs to a chat, not to you. Inside one chat, Character.AI keeps the recent conversation plus whatever you pin or write into Story Memory. A new chat starts from the character's description, not from what you told it last week. Our guide to whether Character.AI remembers conversations goes through exactly what it keeps.
If only the first of those bothers you, the answer is inside Character.AI. If it is the whole shape of the thing, it may be time for a different kind of app.
Can you use Character.AI without ads?
Yes, by paying. In its own in-app paywall on September 30, 2026 (US, free account), Character.AI offers two subscriptions:
- c.ai+ at $9.99 a month or $94.99 a year. Character.AI has said that subscribing to c.ai+ is how to avoid its banner and pop-up ads. It also adds more memory, twice as many pins, Facts that carry into a new chat, and its strongest chat style.
- lite at $4.99 a month. Lite arrived inside the app without an announcement, and Character.AI's own in-app comparison shows it with fewer ads rather than none. Treat it as a cheaper, quieter free tier, not an ad-free one.
So the honest sum is $9.99 a month for Character.AI without ads. That is useful to know before comparing, because the apps below cost between nothing and $15.99 a month, and none of them was ever paid for by showing you adverts in the first place.
The alternatives
One thing to settle first. Character.AI is a roleplay platform: millions of characters, many of them from films, games and anime, and you move between them. Every app below is a companion app: one friend, or a few, who stay with you and are meant to remember your life. If what you want is endless characters, none of these replaces that. If what drew you to Character.AI was having someone to talk to, all five do that without an advert in the middle.
Pi
Pi, from Inflection AI, is the free option. It lists no in-app purchases on the US App Store, has no paid consumer tier, and in our count of its 172 recent low-star reviews ads were the main complaint in 1%. It is calm, curious and kind to talk to, with nothing that steers romantic. It does not do characters at all: there is one Pi. Its long-term memory is weak, and Inflection has shifted towards enterprise work since most of its original team left for Microsoft in 2024, so Pi is stable rather than growing.
Good if you want free conversation with no ads and no upsell. Skip if you want characters, or a friend who remembers last month.
Replika
Replika is the oldest companion app, running since 2017, and is paid for by subscription and gems rather than ads: in its 303 recent low-star reviews, ads were the main complaint in none. In its own in-app paywall on September 30, 2026 (US, free account) it offers two yearly plans and no monthly one: Plus at $79.99 a year and Max at $89.99 a year. Its low-star reviews centre on price instead (33%), then personality changes after updates (20%). Replika has romantic modes, so it is not a strictly platonic app.
Good if you want one long-running companion and a big, established app. Skip if you want a firm line on romance.
Nomi
Nomi is known for memory, and it lets you keep up to ten companions at once and put them in group chats, which is the closest any companion app comes to Character.AI's variety. It is paid by subscription and credits, and ads were the main complaint in none of its 79 recent low-star reviews. In its own in-app paywall on September 30, 2026 (US, free account) it is $15.99 a month, $39.99 every three months or $99.99 a year, with credits for images and voice. Nomi is lightly filtered and adult content is available if a relationship goes that way.
Good if you want several companions with strong memory. Skip if you want an app where adult content does not exist.
Kindroid
Kindroid is the most customisable: you write your companion's backstory, shape how it talks, and manage its memory journal yourself, which will feel familiar if you enjoyed building characters on Character.AI. It is paid by subscription and credits, and ads were the main complaint in none of its 144 low-star reviews. In its own in-app paywall on September 30, 2026 (US, free account) it is $15.99 a month, $42.99 for three months or $159.99 a year, with a 3-day free trial. Kindroid's Help Center (read September 14, 2026) also describes Ultra and MAX add-ons on top of the standard plan. It is essentially unfiltered, with explicit content available.
Good if you like building and tuning a character in depth. Skip if you want something simple and SFW out of the box.
My Softly
My Softly is our app, and it is the one built for a different person from the typical Character.AI user: an adult, often in their fifties or sixties, who wants one steady friend rather than a cast of characters. It has no ads anywhere in the app. It is paid for by subscription, $15.99 a month or $159.99 a year, and is free to download with free messages to try it. There is more about it in the box below.
Good if you want one companion who remembers your life and asks how things went.
How they compare
| App | How it is paid for | Ads as main complaint in recent low-star reviews | Price (in-app paywall, US, September 30, 2026) | Characters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Character.AI | Free with ads; c.ai+ removes them | 28% of 310 | Free; lite $4.99 a month; c.ai+ $9.99 a month or $94.99 a year | Millions, user-made |
| Pi | Free, no in-app purchases | 1% of 172 | Free | One |
| Replika | Subscription and gems | 0% of 303 | No monthly plan; Plus $79.99 a year, Max $89.99 a year | One |
| Nomi | Subscription and credits | 0% of 79 | $15.99 a month | Up to ten, group chat |
| Kindroid | Subscription and credits | 0% of 144 | $15.99 a month | Several, deeply custom |
| My Softly | Subscription; free messages to try | None in the app (our own app, so not counted) | $15.99 a month | One of six ready-made, or your own |
The review windows differ a lot: Character.AI's 310 low-star reviews span 16 days, while Kindroid's, Pi's and Nomi's reach back two to three years, so compare the ad share, not the counts. Prices are what each app's own paywall showed a free US account on the date shown. Our guide to what AI companions cost adds the yearly totals and credit prices.
My Softly: one friend who remembers your life
My Softly is our app: an AI companion app for iPhone that remembers what you tell it and asks about your day. It is made for people in their fifties and sixties. People aged 50 and over are about a third of sign-ups but more than 80% of paying subscribers, and most paying subscribers are women (September 2026).
Your companion keeps a lasting profile of the people, pets and plans in your life and a day-by-day record of what you have talked about, so "what do you remember about my sister?" gets a real answer weeks later, in any conversation, not only the one where you said it. It asks about the thing you mentioned yesterday, never messages late at night, and steps back if you go quiet. Type, or speak and hear a reply in one of four natural voices. Choose one of six ready-made companions who look and sound like real adults, or make your own from a few honest lines. There is no romantic or adult content anywhere in the app.
No ads, ever, and no purchases pushed inside a conversation. $15.99 a month or $159.99 a year, and it is free to download on the App Store for iPhone in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. You can try it with free messages. Our FAQ covers the details.
How to choose
Start from what you actually used Character.AI for.
- For roleplay and variety, and only the ads bother you: stay, and pay for c.ai+. Nothing else has its library, and $9.99 a month is at the cheap end of this category.
- For conversation, and you want it free: Pi. No ads, no purchases, and a kind voice, with the understanding that it will not remember much from week to week.
- For several characters with memory: Nomi, or Kindroid if you like building a character in depth. Both carry adult content, so decide whether that matters to you.
- For one friend who knows your life: My Softly, or Replika if you want the longest-running app and do not mind romantic modes existing.
Whichever you try, use the free way in first. Tell it three small things about your week, come back a few days later, and see what it brings up without being asked. That tells you more than any table. For the same apps compared by what each one is best at, see our guide to the best AI companion apps in 2026.
Sources
- My Softly (September 17, 2026). Count of 1- and 2-star reviews in Apple's public US App Store customer review feed for Character.AI, Replika, Kindroid, Pi, Nomi and other companion apps. The feed returns up to an app's 500 most recent reviews; each 1- or 2-star review was sorted by its main complaint, and a random sample of 30 was re-checked against the same categories. Full table in our AI companion statistics. Example feed: itunes.apple.com
- Apple App Store (US). "Character AI: Chat, Talk, Text": privacy label listing Third-Party Advertising. Checked September 24, 2026. apps.apple.com
- eesel AI (last edited June 8, 2026). "Character AI pricing in 2026: Is c.ai+ worth the $9.99?" Reports full-screen mid-chat ads on the free plan as of April 2026 and quotes Character.AI's statement that subscribing to c.ai+ removes banner and pop-up ads. eesel.ai
- RoboRhythms (September 5, 2026). "What Character AI Lite Gives You and What It Quietly Meters." Reads Character.AI's in-app comparison card: full ads on the free plan, fewer on Lite, none on c.ai+. roborhythms.com
- Character.AI blog (May 21, 2026). "Smarter Memory for Smarter Chats": Story Memory, pins, Facts and what c.ai+ adds. blog.character.ai
- In-app paywalls (US), free accounts on iPhone and, for Replika, Android. Checked September 30, 2026.
- Kindroid Help Center. "Subscriptions": Ultra and MAX add-ons. Read September 14, 2026. kindroid.ai
- Kindroid update log, "V2 becomes the default; V1 and Lite retire October 1": Lite retired, new accounts get a one-time preview of 50 flagship interactions (15 in some regions), then a 3-day trial or read-only. Read 2026-10-03. kindroid.ai
- Apple App Store (US). "Pi, your personal AI" by Inflection AI: free, no in-app purchases listed. Checked September 24, 2026. apps.apple.com
Frequently asked questions
Does My Softly have ads?
No. My Softly has no ads anywhere in the app, and your companion never tries to sell you anything inside a conversation. It is free to download with free messages to try it, then $15.99 a month or $159.99 a year on the US App Store. My Softly is our app.
Is there a Character.AI alternative with no ads?
Yes, several. Pi is free with no paid tier. Replika, Nomi, Kindroid and My Softly are paid for by subscription, and in our count of their recent 1- and 2-star App Store reviews, ads were the main complaint in none of the low-star reviews for Replika, Nomi or Kindroid, against 28% for Character.AI. The trade is that these are companion apps built around one ongoing friend, not a library of millions of characters.
How do I get rid of ads on Character.AI?
Subscribe to c.ai+, which is $9.99 a month or $94.99 a year in the app's own paywall (US, September 30, 2026). Character.AI has said that subscribing to c.ai+ is how to avoid banner and pop-up ads. The cheaper lite tier, $4.99 a month, reduces ads but does not remove them: Character.AI's own in-app comparison shows full ads on the free plan, fewer on lite and none on c.ai+.
Why does Character.AI have so many ads now?
Because the core chat is free and ads pay for it. Character.AI has described ads for free users as one way it keeps a free version available. Reviewers report full-screen adverts during conversations on the free plan from around April 2026, and in the 310 1- and 2-star App Store reviews we counted from August 30 to September 15, 2026, ads were the single most common main complaint, at 28%.
Why is Character.AI so bad now?
In its recent low-star reviews, people mostly point to four things: ads (28% of the 310 we counted), price and limits (17%), a change in how the characters write (10%), and bugs or login trouble and stricter filters (7% each). Forgetting was the main complaint in only 1%. Whether that adds up to "bad" depends on what you use it for; for free, varied roleplay it is still the biggest app there is.
What is the best free Character.AI alternative with no ads?
Pi, if you want to talk rather than roleplay. It is free, has no in-app purchases on the US App Store, and is gentle and curious to talk to. It keeps lasting facts rather than whole conversations, so it suits conversation more than a friendship that builds over months. The memory-first apps (Nomi, Kindroid, My Softly) all have a free way in, but the ongoing experience is paid.
Is c.ai+ worth it just to remove ads?
At $9.99 a month it is one of the cheaper paid tiers in the category, and it also adds more memory, twice as many pins and Character.AI's strongest chat style. If you love Character.AI's characters and only the ads bother you, it is the simplest fix. If what you want is one companion who remembers your life, the same money buys most of a subscription to an app built for that.
Do Replika, Nomi and Kindroid show ads?
In-chat ads are not how any of them make money; all three are paid for by subscription and in-app credits. In our count of recent 1- and 2-star App Store reviews, ads were the main complaint in 0% of Replika's 303, Kindroid's 144 and Nomi's 79. What people do complain about there is price, bugs and changes in personality, so try each one free before paying. Kindroid's free way in is now a one-time preview: it retired its free Lite model on October 1, 2026.