How I check the apps

In a nutshell: every app reviewed here has been on my own phone, 34 of them on a paid plan and 56 on the free plan alone, at various points from 2023 to 2026. My notes on each carry the month and, for the paid ones, the amount. Prices, plans and policies are taken from each app's official pages, most recently in September 2026.

Anything other reviewers report is credited to them. And each reviewed app has my score out of 10, built on my own use plus those official facts.

Short on time? This is the order I would read any review in: the label first, then the check date next to the price, then the free allowance, and last the billing notes, with the statement name and how to cancel. Those four cover most of what you need.

It also keeps the content policy quoted in the app's own words, the platforms, the sign-up steps, the privacy policy's position on keeping chats and training models on them, the cancel steps, the refund terms and the merchant name you will see on your card statement.

Each fact is saved alongside a link to its source and the day it was read. No source, no entry. Where an app keeps a detail to itself, the record marks it as unknown, and the page prints "Not known yet" rather than a guess.

A price published in another currency is left in that currency and not converted, because exchange rates and card fees would make the figure seem more exact than it really is. Wherever a list mixes currencies, a line under it tells you.

If two official sources contradict each other, for example an old help article describing a retired plan while the pricing screen shows its replacement, both go into the record, dated, and the page follows the newer or more cautious one until the conflict is settled.

A point gets into the record only when several sources line up, or when it is clearly credited to the one that said it. In the text, a point like that is always worded as something other reviewers report, never dressed up as my own experience.

This is where you should read most carefully, and the wording is built to help: each sentence makes clear whether a fact comes from the app, from another reviewer or from my own notes.

That spread across 2023 to 2026, so some notes are fresh and others a couple of years old.

Each app has a short set of notes: the month I started, the plan, the cost when there was one, and what stood out. The dates go to the month, not the exact day. Each review shows them as a dated timeline, and first-person sentences in a review may only cover what those notes cover.

When a note describes an older plan or an older price, the review says so and sets today's official plan beside it.

There is no lab, no team and no fixed routine behind this, and no set number of hours per app: a few kept me hooked for months, others only briefly.

That same fact, worded and dated identically, then shows up on every list featuring the app. It is entered once, so pages cannot drift apart.

The catch gets the same treatment. Every review names the drawback you are most likely to run into, such as paying for images on top of the plan or a free tier that cuts off without warning, and it sits in the main text, not in a footnote.

The label changes only when the notes behind it change. Neither a partner programme nor a request from an app can shift it.

I can add an author bonus on top, always shown as its own line in the score box.

Each mark rests on two things: my dated notes on the app, and its official pages as they read today. If a plan or policy has moved on since, the review points that out.

A closed app scores low on reliability, however good it once was. The score appears on the review, with a bar and a one-line reason for every criterion, and beside the app on hubs, lists and the home page. It is my opinion expressed as a number, not a certificate.

The affiliate disclosure explains this, and every entry shows the same set of checked facts, with or without a commission.

In practice, each price needs a fresh check at least once a month, or it disappears from the page.

Deals work the same way. A coupon or discount is shown with the date it was spotted, and only as long as that date is recent. There are no countdown timers or "ends tonight" banners here, since I have no way of knowing when an app plans to end an offer.

The wording has to respect the content rules. A claim of first-hand use, payment or testing on my part also needs my dated notes behind it; without them, the sentence blocks the page until it is rewritten. Pages that fail a check stay unpublished.

That is why every review places today's official plan next to my older notes. My notes also cannot predict how an app will feel for you, and the site cannot promise that your account will get the free allowance a new account was offered on the day of a check. Where nothing is known, the page either quotes other reviewers with a clear label or says plainly that nobody knows yet.

What official pages are good at is telling you what an app costs right now, what it permits, how it bills, what happens to your chats and how to get out. Those facts are behind most of the regret people feel in this category, while also being the easiest to misremember, for me as much as for anyone.

The facts come from public pages you can check any sentence against, and the label tells you exactly what kind of time sits behind each review.

The official pages are also where most of your real questions get answered. What does it cost? Can you start free? Is adult roleplay allowed?

How do you cancel? What name shows on your statement? None of those answers hinges on how charming a character was to me. Every one of them hinges on reading the documents properly, and reading them again whenever they change.

Please tell me through the contact page. The quickest way to confirm it is a dated screenshot or a link to the page where the app itself shows the change.

However long the site runs, nothing on My Virtual Girlfriend will claim more than my notes and the records can support. The broader rules behind this method are in my editorial policy.