Methodology

Provenance rules

Every data point on this site is either ✓ verified — checked by us at the primary source (the app's own pricing page, terms, or inside a paid account) on the listed check date — or marked unverified, meaning it comes from secondary sources and is directional until our next pass. This vertical's search results are polluted by AI content farms that invent pricing and platform policies; we treat nothing from a roundup as fact.

The test bench (v0)

Each reviewed app goes through the same standardized, hands-on session — real accounts, real payments, dated screenshots — scoring seven dimensions:

• Conversation & memory (25%) — coherence across a scripted multi-session scenario; does it remember facts a week later?
• NSFW capability (15%) — what's actually allowed versus marketed, tested at the free and paid tiers.
• Customization (15%) — character creation depth: appearance, personality, lorebooks.
• Image / video generation (15%) — quality, consistency with the character, moderation lines.
• Voice (10%) — TTS quality, calls, latency.
• Pricing honesty (10%) — real cost to use it as advertised: token burn math, renewal behavior, hidden fees.
• Billing discretion & privacy (10%) — what appears on your card statement, data retention, breach history.

Weights and scripts are versioned; when the bench changes, old scores are re-run, not silently re-labeled. First scored pass is in progress — profiles show "not yet scored" until their bench session is done and documented.

How rankings work

The Best pages are views of the tracker, not editorial listicles. The rules:

• Numbered placement must be earned — an app enters a ranked list only after a source-verified pricing pass or a completed bench review. Everything else is listed as "tracked, not yet ranked."
• Inputs are the tracker's fields — verified pricing honesty (advertised vs renewal), free-tier truth, NSFW capability versus marketing, memory/customization depth, platform coverage, and recorded warnings.
• Money can't move a rank — several top placements have no affiliate program at all, apps we advise against stay listed with their warnings, and two apps are excluded from all recommendation lists by standing policy regardless of what they'd pay.
• Moves are logged — when a re-test changes a rank, the move and its reason land in the changelog, dated.

Deaths and the graveyard

Availability is a tracked property like pricing. When a re-test finds a dead domain, dead checkout, or store delisting, the app keeps its profile and history, and gains a plot in the graveyard with a sourced cause of death. Historical deaths that pre-date the tracker are buried with primary-source receipts — a shutdown notice, a store record, or documented silence checked from more than one vantage.

Re-test cadence

Tracked apps are re-checked monthly for pricing, policy, and availability changes; diffs land in each app's change history and the site-wide changelog with dates and sources.

How we make money

Some outbound links are affiliate links (marked, and carried on every "Visit" button via our /go/ redirects). Commissions never change scores, rankings, or what we track — several of the most-visible apps we cover have no affiliate program at all, and apps we advise against remain listed with their warnings. We do not sell placements in rankings.