Questions and answers

Yes. Every feature in the app is free: memory, the agent, MCP tools, on-device voices and speech recognition, voice cloning, images, themes, and importing and exporting your characters. The only thing you can pay for is a subscription that includes AI models we host for you. See how to use everything for free.

Your own key for a compatible AI provider, such as OpenRouter (sign in right from the app), OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen, Cerebras or NanoGPT, or the address of any OpenAI-compatible server, including one running on your own computer. The provider bills you directly.

Both include the same AI models. Premium gives you 2.5 times the usage of Pro. Usage resets every 5 hours and every week, and Settings shows how much you have left.

Yes, for eligible new subscribers: 3 days on monthly plans and 1 week on annual plans. You can cancel any time in your Apple ID subscription settings.

Subscriptions are managed by Apple: open the Settings app, tap your name, then Subscriptions. Deleting your Character Agent account in the app does not cancel a subscription.

iPhone and iPad with iOS or iPadOS 18.2 or later. Voice cloning and the Ming voices need 8 GB of memory: iPhone 15 Pro or newer. Learning memories with Apple Intelligence needs a device that supports Apple Intelligence.

Yes. Your characters, chats and settings sync through your own iCloud account. Health information that you let characters see is never saved to iCloud.

Yes. Lock the whole app or single chats with Face ID, and hide message previews in notifications. Notifications, check-ins and privacy.

Character Agent is rated 18+ on the App Store. Characters are fiction: an AI model writes every reply as you chat, and no person writes them.

Yes. Import PNG, JSON and CHARX character cards (v1, v2 and v3), SillyTavern world info and lorebooks, SillyTavern prompt presets, and chats exported from other apps. Discover Characters opens seven card sites in the app, including Chub, Character Tavern, RisuRealm and JannyAI, and Perchance links import by pasting. Bring your characters home.

Yes, any time, one item at a time: characters and personas as PNG cards or JSON, chats and memories as files, themes and prompt presets as JSON, and pictures to Photos.

A memory is a notebook a character keeps about your story. It learns from your chats every few messages, using your chat model or Apple Intelligence on your device, and adds the most relevant facts, plus every pinned fact, to each reply. You can review, approve, pin, edit and delete every fact. Memory: characters who remember.

A built-in character you can chat with that finds, creates and edits your characters, lorebooks, chats and launchers. Before it deletes something, finds and replaces text, or rewrites a character, it shows the change and waits for you to approve it. Character Agent and MCP tools.

Heart, a natural English voice, is built in. Kokoro (English, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish and French) and Ming (English and Chinese, with over 100 Chinese voices) are free downloads that run on your iPhone, and Apple voices and your Personal Voice work too. Speech recognition uses Whisper on your iPhone, in 90+ languages.

Cloning runs on your iPhone, not on a server, from a few seconds of audio you record or import. Cloned voices sync to your other devices through your own iCloud account. Only clone your own voice, or a voice you have permission to use.

Use a reference image. In Settings › Image Generation, set Reference Image to Character (the character's card picture), Persona (your persona's picture), or Custom (any picture from Photos, Files, Create Image or your Image Library). It's sent with every chat image on services that accept a reference: OpenRouter, NanoGPT and Google Gemini. A Custom picture can be a composite, such as two characters side by side or a character in front of a place, so several characters and locations stay consistent at once. Launchers and chats can each use their own. The same face in every picture.

OpenRouter, Google Gemini, OpenAI, xAI, NovelAI, NanoGPT, Venice, Together AI, Pollinations (free to try, no account), a Stable Diffusion server on your own network such as Draw Things, or any compatible service. Requests go straight to the service you choose, billed to your account there. Images: pictures for your stories.

Start with the guides, or take the tours inside the app under Settings › Tutorials. For questions, join us on Discord.

Design one in the app under Settings › Chat Themes, or write a theme file yourself. Custom theme reference.