This comparison is for adults. CrushOn requires users to be 18 or older, and every app on this site is reviewed for adult use only.
CrushOn AI and Character.AI both host large libraries of user-made characters, and the biggest difference is the content rule. Character.AI’s community guidelines, read on 25 October 2026, say “pornographic content, and nudity are prohibited”. CrushOn titles its own site “No Filter NSFW Character AI Chat”. The second difference is risk: Character.AI filed for Chapter 11 on 12 October 2026 and says the platform “will be wound down” if no buyer keeps it running.
We have not bought or tested either app. Every line below comes from each company’s own pricing pages, help centre, terms and policies, with the date we read them. How we test explains what changes once we do.
CrushOn and Character.AI side by side
| CrushOn AI | Character.AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Run by | Techiepie Ltd (Cyprus) | Character Technologies, Inc. |
| Adult content | Marketed as “No Filter NSFW” | “Pornographic content, and nudity are prohibited” |
| Free plan | 100 message credits a month | “Free and unlimited messaging” |
| Cheapest paid plan | Standard: $5.99 a month or $58.88 a year | (c.ai) lite: from $4.99 a month |
| Full paid plan | Five tiers up to Imperial at $199.99 a month | c.ai+: $9.99 a month or $94.99 a year |
| Chat history on free plan | “Deleted after 7 days of inactivity” | No inactivity deletion in its plan pages |
| Refunds | No partial refunds or credits for unused time | No partial refunds; app-store buyers ask Apple or Google |
| Trains AI on your chats | Yes, “will not link chat contents to specific users” | Yes, “to train our artificial intelligence/machine learning models” |
| Company status | Operating | In a Chapter 11 sale, due to finish late November or early December 2026 |
CrushOn prices were read on 21 October 2026 and its free-plan limits re-read on 25 October 2026. Character.AI prices come from its help centre on 25 October 2026. Both companies say prices vary by region.
What each app allows you to write
Character.AI is built for general roleplay with filters on. Its guidelines list “Illegal sexual content, child exploitation or abuse imagery, grooming, sexual extortion, pornographic content, and nudity” as prohibited, and say its models are “designed with filters and limits to prevent inappropriate outputs”.
CrushOn sells the opposite. Its site title on 31 October 2026 still calls it a “No Filter NSFW Character AI Chat”, and its terms require users to be “at least 18 years of age”.
If you left Character.AI because a filter cut off a story, CrushOn is built for that. If you want romance and adventure roleplay inside clear limits, Character.AI’s rules are written for you.
Free plans: unlimited messages against 100 credits
Character.AI’s free plan has no message cap. The C.ai+ FAQ says “We are proud to continue offering free and unlimited messaging for ALL users”. Free users chat on the basic PipSqueak 2 styles, see full ads, get 15 memory pins and may meet a waiting room at busy times.
CrushOn’s free plan gives 100 message credits a month, per its pricing page on 25 October 2026. Free models do not use credits, Pro models do, and “Ultra Models are Unavailable”. Memory is 8K with 200 past messages kept per character. Free chat history does not last. The page says “Chat History will be deleted after 7 days of inactivity”. Paid plans keep history “during the Membership Period”.
Character.AI’s plan pages publish no such deletion rule for free accounts. A free CrushOn account that sits idle for a week loses its chats.
What the paid plans cost
Character.AI sells two plans, per its help centre on 25 October 2026:
- (c.ai) lite “starts at $4.99/mo”. It adds a daily allowance on the premium DeepSqueak and LongSqueak chat styles, fewer ads, 30 memory pins and chat customisation. In the US it costs $4.99 a month or $2.49 a week, and no yearly price is published.
- c.ai+ renews at “$9.99/month” or “$94.99/year”, per its offer terms. It adds unlimited premium chat styles, no ads, the advanced Lorebook and 20% bonus Charms on purchases. The FAQ says messages generate “approx. 2-3x faster”.
CrushOn sells five tiers, per its pricing page on 31 October 2026. Standard costs $5.99 a month or $58.88 a year for 2,000 message credits a month. Premium costs $14.99 a month or $94.88 a year for 6,000 credits. Luxe costs $39.99 a month or $299.99 a year for 20,000 credits. Elite ($89.99) and Imperial ($199.99) sit above that. Paid tiers raise memory to 16K, and Elite and Imperial to 24K.
On a yearly plan, c.ai+ ($94.99) and CrushOn Premium ($94.88) cost almost the same. The difference is what you pay for: c.ai+ buys speed, no ads and unlimited premium styles, and CrushOn Premium buys 6,000 credits a month on an app without Character.AI’s content rule.
Character.AI’s bankruptcy and what it means if you pay
Character.AI announced a “voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy process to facilitate a court-supervised sale of the company” on 12 October 2026. NBC News and Forbes reported on 13 October 2026 that Disney opened the bidding at $20 million for a licence to selected assets.
The same post answers the subscriber question directly: “Yes, your subscriptions remain active, and billing is unchanged for now.” It expects the sale to finish “by the end of November” or “perhaps early December 2026”, and says it will notify subscribers in advance if paid features change.
For a buyer, this changes the maths on a yearly plan. $94.99 upfront buys 12 months from a company that may close or change owner within about six weeks, and the offer terms say “No partial refunds are issued for unused time within a billing period.” A monthly c.ai+ plan at $9.99 limits what you could lose. Our Character.AI bankruptcy guide covers the data export steps and the court dates.
CrushOn’s terms, last modified 22 September 2026, also let it “modify or discontinue the Service” with or without notice.
Chats, training and deletion
Both companies train AI on what you write. Character.AI’s privacy policy (effective 1 July 2026) lists using information “to train our artificial intelligence/machine learning models”. CrushOn’s policy says “We may use User Content from character chats to train AI models” and adds that it “will not link chat contents to specific users”.
The sale matters here too. Character.AI’s policy lets it disclose information during a “merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition”. Reports in October 2026 differ on whether user chats are part of any deal.
Deleting works differently. Character.AI lets you delete the account from your profile page. CrushOn’s wiki gives the path Profile, Settings, Delete Account, tells you to email support@crushon.ai quickly if you want to try recovery, and warns “Do not assume that a deleted account can be restored.” Its wiki also says you cannot delete chat history older than 24 hours, only newer messages.
Cancelling is the other trap. Character.AI web subscribers manage billing through a customer portal link sent by email from Settings, Account, Manage. CrushOn’s terms give Profile, My Subscription, Manage, Cancel Subscription, and say “We do not offer partial refunds or credits for unused time, mid-cycle cancellations, or downgrades.” CrushOn’s wiki tells SubscribeStar payers not to pick an option that ends access immediately unless they mean to, and to “Check the stated refund terms before confirming.” Our CrushOn AI overview has the full refund and cancel terms.
Neither company appears in Have I Been Pwned’s breach list (checked 31 October 2026).
What paying users complain about
Both apps score low on Trustpilot. Character.AI shows 1.2 stars from 744 reviews, and CrushOn 1.8 from 22. The complaints differ in a useful way:
- Character.AI users object to limits: “100 Go-ons per day?! Seriously? This limit ruins roleplay” (9 October 2026), and to more ads (24 October 2026).
- CrushOn users object to billing: “the first renewal I had on my monthly immediately charged me, dropped me down to free and left me with no updates.” (20 July 2026). Three reviewers also report a $0.99 card charge to access 18+ content, which CrushOn’s FAQ does not mention.
Pick CrushOn if, pick Character.AI if
Neither app pays us, and both links below are plain links.
Pick CrushOn AI if you are an adult who wants roleplay without Character.AI’s content rule, and you will log in at least weekly or pay, since free chats are deleted after 7 idle days. Start on Standard at $5.99 a month before you commit to a yearly plan, because refunds are close to none.
Pick Character.AI if you want unlimited free messages, filtered roleplay and a large character library. Pay monthly for c.ai+ until the sale closes, and request your data export now so you hold a copy whatever happens in court.
If neither fits, our Character.AI alternatives and CrushOn AI alternatives pages compare other apps on price, free plans and training rules.
What changed on 31 October 2026
We re-read every source. CrushOn’s wiki no longer promises a 3-day recovery window for deleted accounts, its SubscribeStar warning changed, and its Premium plan no longer shows a crossed-out $19.99. Character.AI’s help centre moved its plan details into the About lite page and now lists a weekly lite price. We dropped the help-centre “updated” dates from our source titles because the pages now show different dates, removed an unsourced line about rival bidders, and added Trustpilot complaints and a question on public characters.