AI companion apps, compared

An AI companion app is software built around an ongoing conversation with a character rather than a task. In practice the term covers several fairly different products: apps where the character is framed as a romantic partner, apps where it is framed as a friend, tools for roleplay where you author the cast yourself, dating simulators, and general chat tools with fewer refusals. ClickTug organises them by which of those you actually want, because the products barely overlap in price, privacy terms or what they keep.

It depends which of the five categories you are in, and any directory answering with one universal ranking is guessing. The tools that matter for roleplay are not the ones that matter for a companion you talk to daily. ClickTug lists each tool with its published pricing, whether a card is required before you can try it, how long your conversations are kept, and the date all of that was last checked, so you can decide against your own constraints rather than someone else's shortlist.

Yes, though free means at least three different things here. Some vendors give an allowance that renews daily and never expires. Some give a one-off grant of credits, which is a trial with a different name. Some advertise free access while the pricing page lists only paid plans. Free tier and free trial are recorded as separate fields for that reason, and you can filter any hub to the tools with a real one.

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