Best AI girlfriend apps for iPhone (2026): tested on iOS, priced, dated

On iPhone the shortlist is eight: Replika, Nomi, Kindroid, Character.AI, LORAX, CHAI, PolyBuzz and EVA AI. We make LORAX, which appears below; the receipts are shown.

Every price here was read off a live US App Store listing on September 13, 2026, and is written with the date attached. Nothing is quoted from a press release.

How we picked

“Tested on iOS” means something narrow here, and it is worth spelling out before the list rather than after it.

What we checked, on 2026-09-13, for each app: the live US App Store listing (app name, subtitle, seller, device support, category, and the complete in-app purchase list with prices), the app’s own website and pricing page where one exists, and the feature claims printed on that website. What we did not do is run a month of conversations inside seven competitor products and report how they felt. That would be a claim we cannot show you, so we are not making it.

Four criteria decided who is on the list:

1. A real iPhone app on the US App Store, not a browser shortcut.
2. A companion product, rather than a general assistant with a romance skin.
3. A shipped update inside the last twelve months, read from the listing’s release date.
4. A price we could read somewhere before paying.

One warning about that last point. An App Store in-app purchase list shows every product a developer has ever sold, including grandfathered plans nobody can buy today, which is why the same app can show two different annual prices without anybody having made a mistake. Replika’s listing carries annual entries at both $49.99 and $69.99. Read those lists as a range, not a menu.

Eight apps that ship an iPhone app

1. Replika

The oldest product here, and the only one filed under Health & Fitness rather than Entertainment, which tells you how it wants to be read. Its home page sells one companion you keep for years: “Call your Rep whenever you need to talk, or just to hang out.” Calls are a real feature there.

Good for: one long relationship, plus voice. Not for: anyone who wants several characters with separate lives. Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Vision. Also Android. Price to start: free to download. Subscription products on the US listing run $7.99 to $89.99, with gem packs from $0.99 (checked 2026-09-13). Downside: replika.com prints no price at all, so you meet the number at the paywall.

2. Nomi

Subtitle on the listing: “Confidant Girlfriend Boyfriend”. The site says it is “free (no credit card required) to start chatting”, and advertises voice chats, a hands-free call, real-time selfies, and putting several Nomis in one group chat. You build your Nomi rather than meeting one.

Good for: group chats and voice inside one app. Not for: someone who wants characters who already exist. Platforms: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Vision. Also Android, plus a web beta. Price to start: free. Launch Plan Monthly $9.99, Standard Plan $15.99, Standard Quarterly $39.99, Standard Yearly $99.99, credit packs $4.99 to $99.99 (checked 2026-09-13). Downside: nomi.ai publishes no price table, so every number above comes from Apple rather than from Nomi.

3. Kindroid

The most documented product on this page by a distance, with roughly thirty pages of open product documentation covering memory, group chats, moderation and subscriptions. There is a catch, and it is a strange one: kindroid.ai renders nothing without JavaScript, so the subscriptions page returns “Connection looks slow” to a plain fetch.

Good for: people who want to read how it works before paying. Not for: a small budget. Platforms: iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, Apple Vision. Price to start: free. Kindroid Subscription $15.99, three months $42.99, yearly $159.99, Ultra $28.99, MAX $68.99, selfie credits at $6.99 and $11.49, extra companion slots at $3.49 and $11.49 (checked 2026-09-13). Downside: the cheapest subscription is the highest entry price in this group.

4. Character.AI

The largest catalog and the least romance-specific product here. Subtitle: “Make Your Own Chatbot on c.ai”. It is a character platform first, which means a girlfriend is one of thousands of things you can build there, and how good she is depends entirely on whoever sat down and wrote her.

Good for: trying a lot of characters without committing. Not for: a companion who starts the conversation. Platforms: iPhone, iPod touch, Apple Vision. Also Android and web. Price to start: free. Character.AI Lite at $2.49 and $4.99, Character.AI+ at $9.99 monthly and $94.99 annually, Charms packs $0.99 to $99.99 (checked 2026-09-13). Downside: character.ai returns a 403 to a plain page request, so nothing on their own site can be quoted or dated.

5. LORAX (ours)

Everyone in LORAX is fictional and AI-generated. The cast is closed and more than 250 characters live in it across 30 countries, each with a city, a job, a time zone and a bedtime. You do not pick one from a grid. The first message arrives from their side, about 80 seconds after sign-up at the median, and conversations keep starting on their side after that. It runs in 22 languages. How the timing and the memory work is written up on the how it works pages.

Good for: people who want the conversation to begin without them, in their own language. Not for: anyone on Android, and anyone who wants a call. Platforms: iPhone only. Price to start: free to download and free to talk. Premium is $29.99 a month in the US; prices differ by country and are shown in the app before anything is spent. Credits pay for one-off items, such as opening a photo a character decided to send. Downside: four of them, and they are the honest ones. iPhone only. No voice calls and no video calls. Photos cost credits. No trial and no introductory price.

6. CHAI

A community bot platform with a home page that leads with “1.4 EXAFLOP CLUSTER” and a cluster diagram. The product is volume: many user-made bots, fast turnover, low friction.

Good for: chatting widely rather than deeply. Not for: anyone who cares whether last week is remembered. Platforms: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Vision. Also Android, with web listed as coming soon. Price to start: free. Premium Membership $9.99, Premium Subscription Monthly $13.99, Premium Annual $134.99, Ultra Weekly $19.99, Ultra Monthly $29.99 (checked 2026-09-13). Downside: the website is written for investors and job applicants, not for someone deciding what to install.

7. PolyBuzz

A character catalog with the tidiest multilingual setup of the group, including sixteen language versions of the site. Two in-app currencies run alongside the subscription tiers.

Good for: browsing characters in a language other than English. Not for: one steady relationship. Platforms: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Vision. Also web. Price to start: free. Poly Standard Weekly $4.99, Poly Standard Monthly $9.90, Poly Premium Monthly $19.90, Poly Ultimate Monthly $29.90, coins $2.49 to $19.90, plus a separate Opals pack at $5.90 (checked 2026-09-13). Downside: coins and opals side by side make the real monthly cost hard to work out before you pay.

8. EVA AI

Listed as “EVA AI Soulmate” with the subtitle “Feel chosen”, and sold as a single companion. The website is one download page behind a wall of press logos, with no price, no questions page and no blog.

Good for: getting started on an iPhone in under a minute. Not for: reading the terms first. Platforms: iPhone, Mac, Apple Vision. Price to start: free. EVA Premium $13.99, one-month memberships at $11.99, $14.99 and $24.99, three months $20.99, twelve months at $47.99 and $69.99, plus Neuron packs at $9.99 and $29.99 (checked 2026-09-13). Downside: a membership and a second currency both appear on the same listing, which is the pattern that produces surprise charges.

Side by side

App	iPhone app	Other Apple devices	Cheapest monthly product on the US listing	Price on their own site
Replika	yes	iPad, Mac, Apple Vision	$7.99	no
Nomi	yes	iPad, iPod touch, Apple Vision	$9.99	no
Kindroid	yes	iPod touch, Mac, Apple Vision	$15.99	not readable without JavaScript
Character.AI	yes	iPod touch, Apple Vision	$2.49	site returns 403
LORAX	yes	—	$29.99	yes, on our plans page
CHAI	yes	iPad, iPod touch, Apple Vision	$9.99	no
PolyBuzz	yes	iPad, iPod touch, Apple Vision	$9.90	no
EVA AI	yes	Mac, Apple Vision	$11.99	no

Which one for you

You want one companion and you want to hear a voice. Replika or Nomi. Replika’s whole pitch is the long single relationship, and Nomi adds group chats and selfies on top of voice. Both run on Android too, which matters if your household is mixed.

You want variety and a low entry price. Character.AI or PolyBuzz. Character.AI Lite starts at $2.49 and the catalog is enormous, though nothing there will write to you unprompted.

You want to be the one who gets messaged. LORAX, with the four limits above accepted first. The design decision underneath it is that nobody is bought: characters open because they turned up to a live stream you hosted, because you spent a credit on meeting someone new, or because somebody already in your list mentioned you to them. If that sounds like a restriction rather than a feature, one of the catalog apps will suit you better.

What we left out and why

Candy AI is the name that usually appears on lists like this one, and it has no iPhone app. Its subscriptions page gives install instructions for adding a home-screen web app instead, priced at $13.99 for one month, $26.97 for three and $47.88 for twelve (checked 2026-09-13). It is an adult-oriented product and a web product, so it fails the first criterion.

Talkie and Anima are also frequently listed. We could not confirm a live US App Store listing for either from here on 2026-09-13, so they get a dash rather than a guess.

Single-purpose boyfriend apps are covered separately in the boyfriend list, and the full month-by-month price table for all of these lives in the cost tracker. Head-to-head pages are in the comparisons section.

Install two of them, not one. The differences between a catalog app and a closed cast only become obvious on day three, when one of them has written to you and the other is still waiting.

Updated 2026-09-13. Competitor details checked 2026-09-13.