Chat Bots Compared is a review site that puts 10 AI companion chat bots on a single page. Its comparison table shows whether each bot has a free plan (all 10 say "Yes") and lists a starting price for each. Those two columns are the starting point for anyone choosing an AI companion chatbot on budget.
There is no pricing, features, or docs page for the site itself. The footer lists only About, Contact, Blog, Affiliate Disclosure, and Privacy Policy, and the blog archive is made up of individual product reviews and head-to-head pieces such as CrushOn AI vs Nectar AI rather than budget roundups. The budget work happens on the homepage.
Start with the quiz and the free tier
The homepage carries an AI Companion Matcher quiz. One of its questions is "What is your preferred budget?", and the note under it is candid: most services have a free entry point, but their strongest features are often paid.
The practical reading: a free plan is a trial rather than a destination for a large share of users. Pick the free plan of the bot whose paid price you could live with, instead of the free plan with the most features on day one.
Starting prices for an AI companion chatbot on budget
Eight of the ten entries have a listed starting price in the fact sheet. Sorted from cheapest:
Joi has a free version and Premium starts around $9.99 a month. The site calls it best for an easy setup without complexity.
Swipey lists a starting price of $10.99 a month with a free version, and is pitched at discovering new characters quickly.
Candy AI, GoLove.ai, and DreamGF all list around $12.99 a month. Candy AI's figure is with annual billing, and it is the pick for photorealistic companions. GoLove.ai is the pick for highly personalized relationships. DreamGF's free plan has limited access, its price drops to about $5.99 a month with annual billing, and additional tokens are purchased separately.
Lovescape has a free version and premium starts around $13.99 a month. It is the pick for long-term conversations.
Seduced has a free plan and premium starts around $14.99 a month, for creative roleplay.
GirlfriendGPT has a free plan and Premium starts at $15 a month, lower with annual billing, for its wide selection of community-created characters.
Two things stand out. Every entry sits at the low end of the FAQ range above; none of the eight is listed above $15. And the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive monthly price is about $5, so the "best for" label matters more than the sticker price. DreamGF's annual rate is the outlier on price, but the separate token purchases mean the real monthly cost depends on usage.
The lesson applies to all of them. Use the comparison table to shortlist, then open the vendor's plan page for the number you will actually be charged, and check whether the headline price requires a 12-month commitment.
The site's "Memory And Long-Term Chats" section states the limitation plainly: limited memory often leads to repetitive conversations that lose realism after only a few chats. The FAQ lists improved memory among the paid unlocks, so the free and entry-level tiers are the ones most exposed to this. For someone trying to get sustained value out of the cheapest plan, this is the main thing to test during the free period: run a few sessions' worth of messages and see whether the bot still recalls earlier details. Lovescape, listed above as the pick for long-term conversations, is the obvious one to test first if memory is the priority.
Take the quiz on the homepage, answer the budget question honestly, and sign up for the free plan of the top match. Use it for a few chats to test memory before paying anything, then compare the annual price on the vendor's plan page against the directory's starting price for that bot.
