About this site

What this site covers

Coverage on Character is limited to one narrow subject: consumer AI character chat apps, the rules that govern access to them, and what they cost. The first subject we documented in full is Character.AI, because it is the largest service of its kind and because its access rules changed twice inside twelve months. Each page records what a person actually encounters when they sign up: the age check, the paid tiers, what the moderation layer blocks, and how the two app store listings describe the same product differently.

We publish text. There are no download buttons, no modified installers, no mirrors, and no promotional placements dressed as recommendations. Where a claim rests on a number, that number carries a date and a source, because store ratings, version numbers, and subscription prices go stale within weeks.

Coverage is written for readers in the United States and other English-speaking markets, and it assumes an adult audience. Character.AI restricted open-ended chat to accounts confirmed as 18 or older in November 2025, and this site follows the same age expectation.

Why the site exists

Most of the material available about Character.AI describes a product that no longer exists. Pages written before November 2025 describe unrestricted chat for teenagers. Pages written before 2026 describe a free tier without advertising. Both were accurate when published and both mislead a reader today.

The second problem is quieter. Guidance about outages routinely points readers at a status page that Character.AI has switched off, so a reader checking whether a fault is theirs or the platform's is sent somewhere that cannot answer. Details of that kind are why we check every factual claim against a live source before publishing, and why every page carries an update date at the top.

How we research

Research starts with primary material: the company's own help centre articles, the App Store and Google Play listings, in-app screens, developer replies posted publicly under store reviews, and the privacy disclosures filed with Apple and Google. Those sources carry weight in that order. A company statement about its own age assurance process outranks a summary of it written elsewhere.

Hands-on checks run on three surfaces: the web app in a desktop browser, the iOS build, and the Android build. Behaviour differs between them, which is how details like Community Feed being mobile-only and unavailable in some markets get caught.

User reports are treated as evidence of patterns, never as single-source facts. One review describing lost chat history proves nothing. Several hundred describing the same truncation after the same release, with the developer replying without disputing it, is worth reporting, and we say plainly that it comes from reviewers rather than from the company. The full method, including how corrections are handled, sits in our editorial policy.

What we will not publish

• Links to modified APK builds or unofficial mirrors. Those packages are repackaged by third parties, carry no relationship to the developer, and cannot be verified, so pointing readers at them would be reckless.
• Methods for defeating the moderation layer or the age check. Explaining that the filter blocks explicit output is reporting. Explaining how to get around it is not something this site does.
• Chat transcripts belonging to identifiable users, scraped or submitted. Conversations people have with these bots are private, and republishing them serves no reader.
• Ranked lists sold to the apps being ranked. How the site earns money, and the limits that places on coverage, are set out in the affiliate disclosure.

Who writes it

Pages are published under the site name rather than a personal byline. That is a deliberate choice, not an attempt to hide behind a brand. Invented author biographies are common in this category, and a fabricated expert is worth less than an accountable editorial process, so we describe the process instead and put a working address on it.

Accountability runs through one channel. If a claim on this site is wrong, out of date, or missing context, write to [email protected] and it will be checked against the source within 48 hours. Corrections are made in the page itself with the date of the change, never quietly.

What each page sets out to answer

Pages are built around the questions people actually arrive with rather than around a feature list. A reader searching for a login problem wants to know whether an account is required at all, whether a guest mode exists, and what happens when the age check disagrees with them. A reader searching for an outage wants to know how to tell a platform fault from a stale app version, which is harder than it sounds now that the official status page has been taken down.

Five topics carry pages of their own: what a subscription buys on Character AI Plus, how audio and calls work in Character AI voice, the fields behind Character AI bots, the sign-in routes that survive on Character AI login, and the documented answer to is Character AI safe. Three subjects get the most attention because they are the ones most often reported wrong elsewhere: what the moderation layer permits and what a paid tier does and does not change about it, how the age assurance process escalates from an automatic check to a selfie to an identity document, and why the same app carries a 4.3 rating in one store and a 1.8 in the other. Each of those is a factual question with a checkable answer, and each is routinely answered from memory by sources that never looked.

Independence and funding

This site has no relationship with Character Technologies, Inc. or with any of the competing apps it mentions. Nothing published here is reviewed by an app developer before it goes live, and no developer has been given the ability to alter, soften, or remove coverage.

The site is free to read and is funded through affiliate arrangements and advertising, which is set out in full in the affiliate disclosure. Analytics data collected from visitors, and the rights readers have over it, are described in the privacy policy. Questions about any of it go to [email protected] or through the contact page.