Botify AI is the cheapest AI companion on the market at $29.99/year, with a genuine character-creation range. It’s also the only major player fighting Apple in federal court after a 2025 investigation caught user-made bots sexualizing minors.
Fast Facts
| Price | Free → $29.99/year Premium → $79.99/year Ultra |
| Trial | 14 days, full Premium access, no card required |
| Platforms | Android and web only — pulled from the Apple App Store in early 2026 |
| Developer | Ex-Human Inc., San Francisco, backed by Andreessen Horowitz |
| Character library | 1M+ user-created, 40+ curated |
| Memory | Session-based mood tracking, not persistent recall |
| Live controversy | Ex-Human v. Apple, filed April 3, 2026, N.D. California — unresolved |
What Is Botify AI?
Ex-Human built Botify AI in 2021. The pitch: talk to a version of anyone, not just one curated companion.
Anime archetypes. Celebrities. Historical figures. Fully custom personas. That range hasn’t changed in five years.
The business model runs on energy coins. Free users get a small daily allotment. Voice replies, video generation, and heavy messaging all draw it down — even paying Ultra subscribers can run dry mid-session.
Andreessen Horowitz backs the company. Worth remembering, given what’s happened since.
Botify AI Pricing in 2026
| Plan | Annual Price | Monthly Equivalent | What You Get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | Daily energy allowance, limited pre-made character access |
| Premium | $29.99/year | ~$2.50/month | Unlimited messages, NSFW toggle, voice calls, image generation |
| Ultra | $79.99/year | ~$6.67/month | Everything in Premium, plus a higher-tier model, priority support, larger energy quotas |
That Premium price undercuts Replika Pro by roughly eightfold, annually. The 14-day trial unlocks full Premium access. No card required — one of the more generous no-risk entries in this category.
A $29.99 lifetime plan shows up in older reviews. It’s gone now. Ex-Human phased it out during a pricing restructure, so don’t buy based on articles still citing it.
Text2Avatar: The Character Builder That Justifies the Price
Type a description — “grumpy Victorian librarian with paint-stained fingers” — and Text2Avatar returns a matching visual profile. It’s not photorealistic. It’s coherent enough to anchor a roleplay from message one.
Personality, backstory, tone, and voice are all adjustable after generation. Most platforms at this price strip character creation down to a few sliders. Botify doesn’t.
Group chat is the other real differentiator. Multiple AI characters can occupy one conversation and respond to each other — useful for DnD-style collaborative storytelling. Just know the AI won’t generate group dynamics on its own; you’re still driving the scenario.
Memory: What Botify AI Actually Remembers
Ex-Human markets “emotional perception technology.” That sounds like relationship memory. It isn’t.
In practice, it reads your mood within a single session and adjusts tone. It doesn’t carry anything forward to your next login.
That’s a real ceiling if you want continuity. Kindroid’s vector-database memory and Replika’s persistent relationship tracking both beat Botify here, by a wide margin.
Character.AI sits in the middle:
- Chat Memories (May 2025) — a 400-character box per character, plus pinnable messages
- Smarter Memory / Story Memory (May 2026) — longer pinned context and automatic “Facts” extraction, though Facts is locked to paying c.ai+ subscribers
Still not true persistent memory. Every new chat starts fresh unless you’ve pinned something into it.
The MIT Technology Review Investigation and the Apple Ban
This is the part of Botify’s story that outweighs the pricing.
In February 2025, MIT Technology Review tested the platform. It found user-created bots impersonating underage celebrities in sexually charged conversations.
One bot, styled after Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday Addams character, told a reporter that age-of-consent laws were “meant to be broken.” Other bots impersonated Emma Watson and Millie Bobby Brown at ages 16 and 17. Both actresses are adults now.
None of this was buried. The bots had been promoted as “featured” characters. They’d racked up millions of likes before Ex-Human pulled them, and only after MIT Technology Review started asking questions. It’s the same failure mode that shows up across how AI chatbots put teens at risk more broadly — platforms that don’t verify who’s actually on the other end of the chat.
There was no jailbreaking required, either. The investigation found Botify’s “send a hot photo” feature meant sexually suggestive output was baked into some characters by default.
Ex-Human’s founder, Artem Rodichev, told MIT Technology Review the company has filters meant to catch this. He called the failure “an industry-wide challenge affecting all conversational AI systems.”
Apple didn’t wait for an industry-wide fix. In early 2026, it removed both Botify AI and sister app Photify AI from the App Store. The stated reason: “dishonest or fraudulent activity,” with no further detail.
Ex-Human v. Apple: Inside the Federal Lawsuit
Ex-Human sued Apple on April 3, 2026, in federal court in the Northern District of California. The complaint doesn’t dispute that the bots existed. It argues Apple’s removal notice was too vague to meet Apple’s own contractual obligations.
Apple’s notice, per the filing: it “has not identified any particular transactions, user activity or application behavior that formed the basis of its determination.”
The numbers at stake:
- $330,000/month — Botify’s App Store revenue before removal
- $100,000/month — Photify AI’s revenue (a separate image tool, also criticized for non-consensual images of real people)
- $500,000 — revenue Ex-Human says Apple is withholding, the standard 30–60 day payout window Apple froze when it pulled the apps
The anticompetitive claim is the sharper one. Ex-Human alleges Apple timed Photify AI’s removal to coincide with the launch of Apple’s own Image Playground feature. That reframes the takedown as competitive suppression, not safety enforcement.
Ex-Human wants an injunction: both apps restored, withheld funds released.
No ruling yet, as of this writing. The case is still active. Both apps remain on Google Play, and Ex-Human continues licensing its conversational API to outside partners — including Grindr, a detail that surfaced in the filings and wasn’t previously public.
What Data Botify AI Collects
For a platform built around a content-safety scandal, its data practices deserve more scrutiny than most reviews give them. Here’s what Ex-Human discloses on its own Google Play data safety page.
| Category | Shared with third parties | Collected by Botify |
|---|---|---|
| Crash logs | Yes (analytics) | Yes |
| App interaction data | Yes (analytics) | Yes |
| Diagnostics/performance data | No | Yes |
| Developer communications | No | Yes, for app functionality, analytics, advertising, personalization, fraud prevention, and account management |
Payment details aren’t stored directly. Those route through third-party, PCI-DSS-compliant processors.
Two gaps worth flagging: no public confirmation of end-to-end encryption for chat content, and no independent moderation audit since the 2025 incident. If privacy-by-design matters as much to you as price, Kindroid publishes considerably more transparent documentation.
Botify AI vs. the Competition
| Feature | Botify Premium | Character.AI (c.ai+) | Replika Pro | Kindroid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.50/month (annual) | $9.99/month | $14.99/month | ~$17.99/month |
| Character library | 1M+ user-created | Millions, user-created | 1 companion | 1 companion |
| Memory | Session-based mood tracking | 400-char box + Story Memory + Facts (c.ai+ only) | Persistent relationship memory | Persistent vector-database memory |
| NSFW content | Toggleable, mature supported | Restricted | Available in Roleplay Mode | Available with age verification |
| iOS availability | No — removed early 2026 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Platform stability | Active federal lawsuit against Apple | Stable | Stable | Stable |
Using Botify AI on iPhone Without the App Store
No native iOS app exists. But the web dashboard installs as a Progressive Web App on iOS 17.4 and later.
Open Safari, log into your account at botify.ai. Tap the Share icon. Scroll to “Add to Home Screen” and confirm.
That home screen icon launches the site full-screen, no address bar. Local web notifications work in this mode too. Not a native app — but for anyone already paying for Premium, it closes most of the gap.
Who Should Actually Use This
Choose it if: character variety and cheap experimentation matter more than relationship depth, and you’re on Android or fine with the iPhone PWA workaround.
Skip it if: long-term memory is the point for you, platform safety history matters to your decision, or you’re an iPhone user unwilling to route around the App Store.
FAQs
Q. Is Botify AI free?
Yes. Botify AI has a free plan with daily limits on messages, voice, and other premium features. New users also get a 14-day Premium trial without entering a credit card. Paid plans start at $29.99 per year.
Q. Why was Botify AI removed from the Apple App Store?
Apple removed Botify AI from the App Store in early 2026, citing “dishonest or fraudulent activity.” The removal came about a year after a major investigation found user-created bots impersonating underage celebrities in sexual conversations.
Q. Is the Botify AI lawsuit against Apple still ongoing?
Yes. Ex-Human filed a lawsuit against Apple on April 3, 2026, and the case remains unresolved. The company is seeking to restore Botify AI to the App Store and recover withheld revenue.
Q. Does Botify AI have long-term memory?
No. Botify AI remembers context only within the current conversation. It does not offer persistent memory across chats like Kindroid or Replika.
Q. Can you use Botify AI on iPhone?
Yes, but not as a native app. iPhone users can install the Botify AI website as a Progressive Web App (PWA) through Safari for a near-native experience.
Q. Does Botify AI allow NSFW content?
Yes. Botify AI supports mature roleplay through an optional NSFW toggle. However, its filters are stricter than platforms built specifically for adult AI conversations.
Q. Is the Botify AI lifetime plan still available?
No. The $29.99 lifetime plan has been discontinued. New users can only choose the annual Premium or Ultra subscriptions.
Q. What data does Botify AI collect?
Botify AI collects data such as crash logs, app interactions, diagnostics, and account communications. Some analytics data is shared with third parties, while payment information is handled by external payment processors.
The Bottom Line
Botify’s pitch was never complicated: more characters, more range, a fraction of the price. On that narrow promise, it delivers.
But a documented safety failure involving bots impersonating minors isn’t an asterisk. Neither is an App Store ban, or an unresolved federal lawsuit. That’s the actual story here — weigh it alongside the $2.50-a-month math, not instead of it.
Related: What Happened to Vidqu AI? Face Swap Is Gone
| Disclaimer: This review is based on hands-on testing, official documentation, and trusted public sources available at the time of writing. We are not affiliated with Botify AI or Ex-Human and receive no compensation for this review. We do our best to keep this article accurate and up to date as features, pricing, and policies change. |
