Create your own AI girlfriend: what is free and what costs

You can create your own AI girlfriend on Candy for free, once. A second character, and any conversation with the first that runs past 5 messages, needs Premium, which starts at $3.99 a month on the 12-month plan. The free build is a real test drive on a very short track.

A note on method, because a feature page should show its sources. Candy’s builder page loads logged out with every option in it, and the sign-up prompt sits on the final summary screen, so I could read the choices. The help center, homepage and plan page supply the rules and the money, all re-checked on October 15, 2026, and where I could not see something I say so. I should confess that I am the person who loses an evening to choosing eyebrows, which is the strongest case I know for a token meter.

Create your own AI girlfriend for free: the one-character deal

Candy’s help center lists what a free user can do: send up to 5 messages across all characters, create one custom AI character, and generate one image. That is the whole list, with no tokens, no video and no voice.

The catch is the pairing. You can build her in as much detail as you like, then you have 5 messages to spend on her and every other character combined. A free build is a character sheet with a short fuse. It still answers the question worth answering before you pay: do you enjoy the building? The rest of the free tier is in is Candy AI free.

What the builder lets you choose

The realistic style, Candy’s character customization in step-by-step form, walks through ethnicity (five options), age (the picker starts at 18), eye color, hair style and color, body type, a name, a personality from a dozen types, a relationship role, an occupation from more than forty, up to three preferences from a list of about two dozen, and one of nine voices. A summary screen shows an outfit and asks you to sign up to bring her to life.

The anime style trades choices around: three ethnicities against five, but ten hair colors against five. One mismatch to know about: the help center, last updated in March, says the current characters cover three ethnicities with two more in development, yet the realistic builder showed five when I read it. Trust the builder, and open it on a free account before spending anything.

Afterward, Candy says you can edit her greeting. A created character can switch from Classic to Roleplay chat mode, and that switch is permanent. There is no intensity slider; the help center’s advice is to put detailed personality traits and background in at creation and steer with how you write, and moderation can still limit what happens whatever you set.

What it costs: tokens, and the number Candy keeps to itself

The plan page lists “Create your own AI Girlfriend(s)”, and the help center says creating the current characters is unlimited. Read that as no cap on how many you make. It does not mean free: Candy’s token list includes creating a custom AI, and its homepage warns that the more detailed your companion, the more tokens you use. No page I could read gives the price.

So I cannot tell you what a build costs. I can tell you the pool: 100 tokens a month, shared with images, voice, video and Shorts (see Candy AI tokens). For scale, a 12-token Shorts episode works out at $0.48 on the 12-month plan and $1.68 on the 1-month plan, and a build comes out of the same tokens. The other route is an Exclusive Character, a limited-time pre-made character unlocked for a set number of tokens (the help center’s example is 200, two months of allowance) and usually bundled with a content pack.

Is it worth paying to build more than one?

Stay on the free character if one build scratches the itch, or if you only wanted to see the options. Pay if you want to talk to her beyond 5 messages, keep several characters, or generate images and video of her. The chat is the real reason to upgrade, because a character you cannot talk to is a portrait.

The 12-month plan is the cheapest route: $3.99 a month, $47.88 billed once, renewing automatically, so set a reminder. One refund note: Candy refunds a subscription only within 24 hours, and only if you have used 20 tokens or fewer. I cannot tell whether one paid build crosses that line, so use the free slot first. The wider money picture is in what Candy AI costs.

Where Candy Shorts fits

Shorts are scripted series with pre-made lead characters, and Candy says they are separate from your chats. A series ends by pointing you to its lead’s chat, not to a character you built, and I found nothing saying yours can star in one. That makes the free episodes the cheaper test of Candy’s own cast: episode 1 plays without an account, episode 2 is free with a login, and paid episodes cost 12 tokens. The builder offers a dozen personality types, and none of them is “ends every scene mid-sentence”, which is the one that got me.

The honest drawbacks

• The build price is hidden. Candy lists the token use and publishes no number.
• Free chat is tight. 5 messages in total, so a free character stays quiet fast.
• Some choices are one-way. Roleplay mode is permanent, and V2 characters cannot go back to V1.
• Requests can be altered. Candy’s terms say moderation controls may moderate or alter a request before anything is generated, whatever the marketing says about “uncensored”.
• Personal use only. Candy’s help center bars commercial use of generated content. Posting images of characters you created to your own social accounts, unmonetized, is allowed.

Start with the free build: one character, no card. If she leaves you wanting more than 5 messages, the plans above are where it gets real.