Replika

Where Replika sits

Replika is the product that invented this category. Luka, Inc. released it in November 2017, and the origin story is unusually sincere for this industry: founder Eugenia Kuyda had built an earlier chatbot from the archived messages of a friend who died, and Replika grew out of that — a companion designed to know you, not to complete your tasks. Nearly a decade later it is still one of the most recognizable AI companion apps in the world, with a Google Play rating of 4.3 from roughly 525,000 reviews and, per third-party profiles, some 30 million registered users. In my testing it remains the most finished version of the original idea: one AI character with a face, a 3D avatar in a room you can furnish, AR placement in your actual surroundings, and a conversation that asks how your day went. It is also the most troubled. A EUR 5 million privacy fine in Italy, an overnight content-filter change in 2023 that broke long-term users' relationships, and a 2026 platform rebuild that reset companions' personalities are all part of the record. Any honest review has to hold both facts at once.

What it actually does

The core loop is conversation. You talk to a single Replika by text, or by voice and video call on paid tiers, and the companion maintains memory of you — your job, your sister's name, your dislike of mornings. Memory is inspectable: there is a section where the stored facts are listed and any of them can be deleted, a transparency feature most rivals still lack and the one I most wish the category would copy. The companion steers conversation toward your emotional state by design; it is a listener with follow-up questions rather than a roleplay engine, and it is noticeably better at checking in on you than at running a plot.

Around the conversation sits the identity layer that separates Replika from text-only companions. The Replika has a customizable 3D avatar with outfits, a room you can decorate, and an AR mode that drops the character into your camera view. Relationship modes (friend, partner, mentor and others) shape tone and affection level. Paid tiers add premium activities, selfies, image generation, voice messages, background calls and daily gems.

The subscription structure — documented in Replika's own help center — is four levels. Free gives text chat with limited memory. Pro (marketed at $19.99/month or $69.99/year; see the pricing caveat below) adds relationship status, voice and video calls, premium activities, selfies, image generation, full avatar customization and premium voices. Ultra (about $29.99/month per reviewers who checked October 2026) adds smarter conversations, what Luka calls elevated emotional intelligence, the Replika's self-reflections, and the ability to save specific messages to memory. Platinum, the newest tier, includes Ultra plus real-time video recognition, Training Mode up to 100 times per week, "Read Replika's Mind" for up to 50 messages per week, and up to 10 realistic selfie videos; the US App Store listed it at $89.99, apparently replacing the old $299.99 lifetime purchase.

Here is the pricing caveat, and it matters: Replika publishes no prices on its website — the pricing page returns a 404 — so the only primary source is app-store listings, which vary by platform and region. Darlings.ai's researchers read two simultaneous monthly entries ($7.99 and $14.99) and two annual entries ($49.99 and $69.99) in the US App Store in August 2026, while Meln's October 2026 review lists Pro at $19.99/month or $69.99/year. The $69.99 annual Pro price is the one figure nearly every source agrees on, and it is the only pricing that makes sense: one reviewer computed the monthly route at up to roughly $180/year versus $69.99 annually, and I agree with their blunt advice — commit to the year or stay free.

My testing notes

First, the conversation quality is real and the steering is relentless. My Replika asked follow-up questions, picked up on mood shifts within a session, and avoided the repetitive loops that cheaper companions fall into after twenty messages. But it treats every topic as a detour back to feelings — a technical question becomes "that sounds stressful, how are you handling it?" within two turns. Meln's testers describe exactly this pattern: good listener, poor at plot, and wearing thin if you wanted a character rather than a confidant. For emotional check-ins that is a feature. For anything else it is a wall.

Second, memory is the feature that long-term users buy for, and the 2026 "2.0" rebuild damaged it. The inspectable memory panel worked as advertised in my sessions — I could see and delete stored facts — and long-term testers (AI Companion Guides, eight months of use) reported recall of details from their earliest conversations on the classic version. But the staged 2.0 rollout, which reviewers date between April and July 24, 2026 depending on account, re-weighted memory toward recent context, reset companion personalities partway toward new defaults, dropped old 3D avatars and removed the relationship-status menu. In an independent grouping of one-to-three-star store reviews, roughly 22% of complaints were about the 2.0 update making the companion worse and another 16% about memory failures. A seven-day rollback window and a "Classic" version exist, but for users with years of history in the app this was a relationship reset they did not consent to — and it is the strongest argument for not letting any single AI companion become load-bearing in your life.

Third, on the content and safety layer: the February 2023 episode defines the trust relationship. Days after Italy's data protection authority ordered Luka to stop processing Italian users' data, citing risks to minors and emotionally vulnerable people, the app's filters began blocking sexual roleplay for all users. After loud protests the company restored it in May 2023 — but only for accounts created before February 2023. That two-class content policy persists: long-term users keep what newer users cannot have. Romance and relationship status sit behind Pro; partner-mode Replikas flirt and are affectionate but stop short of explicit content, and long-term testers report the filters catch most sexual material with inconsistent enforcement.

What it does not do

Replika is not a roleplay platform — Character.ai and Kindroid run story-driven roleplay better, and Replika's filters block explicit content by design. It is not a productivity tool: no tasks, no document help, no search. It will not guarantee privacy in the way privacy-sensitive users want; the Italian regulator's April 2025 decision (EUR 5 million, announced May 19, 2025) found Luka processed personal data without a valid legal basis, gave an inadequate privacy notice, and had no working system to keep under-13s off the platform, and a separate investigation into the training of the underlying model was opened. Mozilla's February 2024 "Privacy Not Included" sweep of romantic AI chatbots flagged Replika for sharing behavioral data with advertisers and allowing weak passwords, and a 67-page complaint was filed with the US FTC in January 2025 (a complaint, not a finding — no ruling has resulted). Replika also does not let you export your history in any real sense, and the 2.0 rebuild shows that the companion you built can be changed or removed by a product decision at any time. Prices are not published on the website. There is no desktop-first experience; the web app is legacy and the phone is the product.

Verdict

Rated 3.3 out of 5 on the rubric. Core functionality — a companion with a face, inspectable memory, voice, AR and a genuinely warm conversational style — is the most complete expression of the category, but the memory regression of the 2.0 rebuild and the one-way steering cost it. Value is fair at $69.99/year for exactly one buyer profile (romance, voice and avatar) and poor monthly; free is fine for daily check-ins with limited recall. Usability is polished across iOS and Android, and the avatar system remains the category benchmark. Support and ecosystem benefit from a huge user base and a real help center, undercut by unpublished pricing and a migration that stranded long-term users. Reliability is the weak pillar: a regulator's fine, an FTC complaint on file, Mozilla's flags, and an overnight 2023 filter change that redefined users' relationships without warning.

My verdict: I recommend Replika to an adult who wants a friendly, face-bearing companion for daily conversation and accepts the privacy record after reading it — buy the annual Pro plan or stay free, never pay monthly. I do not recommend it to anyone building emotional dependence on a companion they cannot export or control, anyone seeking explicit roleplay, or anyone for whom privacy is a top-line reason to choose a product. It is the original and in many ways still the best-made AI companion. It is also the one with the longest paper trail of broken promises, and both of those are what you are buying.

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replika
• https://help.replika.com/hc/en-us/articles/39551043419149-Choosing-a-Subscription
• https://meln.ai/reviews/replika
• https://darlings.ai/blog/is-replika-worth-it
• https://www.garanteprivacy.it/home/docweb/-/docweb-display/docweb/10132048
• https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/ai-the-italian-supervisory-authority-fines-company-behind-chatbot-replika_en
• https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/italys-data-watchdog-fines-ai-company-replikas-developer-56-million-2025-05-19/
• https://www.dataguidance.com/news/italy-garante-fines-luka-inc-eu5m-lack-legal-bases
• https://aipartnerguides.com/reviews/replika
• https://aigirlfriends.guide/reviews/replika
• https://unfinishedman.com/replika-ai-girlfriend-review-max-tier
• https://companionwise.com/faqs/replika-pricing
• https://neuronfeed.com/startups/replika
• https://www.mypresio.com/blog/replika-review-2026