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AI Companion True Cost Calculator (2026)
Last updated: November 2026.
Every AI companion app advertises a subscription price. Almost none of them advertise the real price. The pattern across the category: the subscription covers text chat, while the things most people actually open the app for — generated images and voice calls — burn tokens (or credits) that run out and get topped up separately. A $13.99 plan can quietly become a $45 month.
This calculator does the math the pricing pages don't. Pick an app, set the sliders to how you'd honestly use it, and we'll estimate the true monthly cost — subscription plus the token top-ups your usage would burn through. It's an estimate based on published rates (checked November 2026), not a quote: some rates vary, and we flag every assumption below.
Run your numbers
1. Pick an app
2. Set your usage
Why the sticker price misleads
Three separate mechanisms do the damage, and every app in this category uses at least one of them:
- The token meter. Text chat is usually covered by the subscription. Images and voice are not — they draw from a monthly token allowance sized for casual use, and once it's gone you're buying packs. Heavy media users often spend more on tokens than on the subscription itself.
- The promo-to-renewal gap. The price on the landing page is frequently a first-term promotion. The renewal amount — shown at checkout, in smaller print — is the price you'll actually pay from month two. DreamGF's gap is the widest we've documented; our DreamGF pricing guide walks through it.
- The annual mirage. Annual plans advertise a strikingly low "per month" figure, but they only discount the subscription. If tokens are 60% of your real spend, the headline discount applies to the smaller half of your bill.
How tokens work, in one paragraph
Tokens are the in-app currency for anything that costs the company real compute: image generation, video clips, and voice. Your plan includes a monthly allowance; each image or call minute burns tokens at a per-app rate; when you hit zero, the feature stops until you buy a pack or the month resets. Whether unused tokens roll over varies by app — DreamGF's now do. We explain the whole system, including how to measure your own burn rate in week one, in our guide to how AI companion app tokens work.
The three apps, side by side
| What you pay for | Candy AI | DreamGF | FantasyGF |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription (ongoing monthly) | $13.99/mo renewal ($9.99 first month) | $25.98/mo renewal — first payments start lower | Premium $12.99/mo · Ultra $49.99/mo |
| Text chat | Included (unlimited) | Included | Included |
| Included tokens / credits | ~100 tokens/mo | 150 credits/mo, rollover | Ultra: 500 tokens/mo · Premium: see rates note |
| Images | ~4 tokens each | Burn credits — rate not published | From 2 tokens each |
| Voice calls | ~3 tokens/min | Burns credits — rate not published | 8 tokens/min Premium · 4/min Ultra |
| Top-up packs | From $9.99 for 100 tokens | Sold separately — pricing at checkout | Sold separately — pricing at checkout |
Rates and assumptions behind this calculator
Estimates use weekly usage × 4.33 weeks per month. Chat messages are modeled at $0 in token cost on all three apps — text chat is covered by the subscription on each. Where a rate isn't published, we don't invent one; we say so, and the estimate treats that activity as subscription-only, which makes the total a floor rather than a ceiling for that app.
- Candy AI: Premium at the $13.99/month ongoing renewal rate (first month is a $9.99 promo); ~100 tokens/month included; images at ~4 tokens each and voice at ~3 tokens/minute, per our Candy AI pricing guide and our tokens guide (the pricing guide puts images in a 2–5 token range; we model the middle-high end). Top-ups priced as whole packs of 100 tokens at $9.99, because that's how they're sold. Video clips also burn tokens and aren't modeled — heavy video users will spend more.
- DreamGF: subscription at the $25.98/month ongoing renewal rate documented in our DreamGF pricing guide (first payments start lower — $12.99 for the first month on the monthly plan, then $25.98 — which is exactly the trap that guide covers). Plans include 150 credits/month and unused credits roll over. DreamGF doesn't publish a per-image or per-minute credit rate, and credit-pack pricing is confirmed only at checkout, so media is not priced into the estimate: the total is your subscription, and credit packs for media beyond the included 150 credits will add to it.
- FantasyGF: rates from FantasyGF's published pricing page (checked November 2026): Premium $12.99/month ($69.99/year), Ultra $49.99/month with 500 tokens/month included; voice calls at 8 tokens/minute on Premium and 4/minute on Ultra; images from 2 tokens each. Premium's included monthly token allowance isn't stated in the published rates we checked, so we conservatively model it as zero — any allowance Premium does include would lower your top-ups. FantasyGF token-pack pricing isn't published either, so when your usage runs past the included tokens, the calculator shows the token shortfall instead of guessing a dollar figure.
Bottom line: run the calculator with your honest usage, not your aspirational usage. If you're a texter, all three apps really do cost close to sticker. If you live in voice and images, the tokens are the bill — and the cheapest subscription is often not the cheapest app. Whichever you pick, test the free tier first, start monthly, and read the renewal line at checkout before you commit to a longer term.