Chub AI Review: My Four Months in a Giant Card Catalog

My take in one line: Chub AI is brilliant for people who like to direct their own stories, and the wrong pick if what you're after is a ready-made girlfriend the minute you sign up. Here is what this review answers:

• What the Chub AI trial credits give you today, and how the free side looked in 2024
• Whether memory holds up in a long roleplay campaign
• How open the library is, and why the tag filters matter
• What Mars costs now, how you pay and how you cancel
• Who should pick another app instead

If you want the wider field first, my ranking of AI chat character apps lines up the other character hubs next to this one.

The free side has changed since my time. In 2024 there was a free tier, and the free tier plus exports kept me honest. Today the subscription page, read on 2026-09-22, lists no standing free plan: new users regularly get one-time trial credits worth "a few dozen messages".

Beyond that, you can self-host for free through Kobold or Ooba on your own computer, or bring your own key from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenRouter or NovelAI, billed by that provider.

I don't love the change. A few dozen messages won't show you what a long campaign feels like. Older guides still quote daily free caps that disagree with each other, so treat any "50 a day" promise as out of date.

The at-a-glance box sums up the rest, and if an open content policy is what brought you here, compare my list of uncensored AI apps.

The record explains why memory can hold up that well here. Chat Memory keeps a running summary, written by you or generated by the AI, and sends it along as extra context. Chub AI lorebooks and characterbooks inject background details only when a keyword comes up, so they don't eat into the space of the character definition. If you plan a story world the way I plan a shelf, that design is a gift.

Not everyone gets my result. Other reviewers say the writing holds a character's voice well across several characters, while another account describes repetition and the AI writing both sides of the conversation. My read: on a platform this open, the model you choose and the care behind a card's writing decide the quality. A sloppy card gives sloppy chat.

The creator itself is thorough: name, avatar, tagline, description, first message, scenario, example dialogs, a system prompt, post-history instructions, a content rating, and a visibility switch between public, private and unlisted. Nothing in it assumes one kind of user or one kind of partner, which I appreciate. You can also put several Chub AI characters into one chat.

One practical note: Chub AI is a single-page web app, so it only shows content once it has fully loaded in your browser. If it stays blank for you, my Chub AI status guide explains what to look at first.

If you are looking for the Venus Chub AI NSFW rules, they are the same ones under the new name.

Here is my friction with it. The open library is very open. I curate hard, and I still bumped into content that would get a book challenged at my branch within a week. During my July 2024 campaign I leaned on the tag filters to curate the library, and I mean it when I call them load-bearing. Set them before you browse, not after.

Each character also carries an NSFW or SFW rating from its creator. Handy: you know what a card is meant for before the first message. The weak spot is that a rating is only as honest as the person who set it, so if you prefer romantic and flirty, stick to SFW-rated characters or write your own.

Images follow the same open line: the Imagine tool works inside the chat, and Mars lists unlimited multimedia generation. Other reviewers report pictures that look photorealistic at first glance but clearly AI-made up close, with a character's likeness drifting between images. Voice is text-to-speech in the chat, not live calls, and no video feature is on record.

The stated rule is 18+, reportedly a Terms checkbox rather than an ID step. My view: that is a light gate, so your own filters do most of the work. If an open hub is more than you want, my list of Chub AI alternatives has calmer options.

Next to the apps in the strip further down, that price sits at the top. Candy AI's 1-Month Plan is €13.99 with 100 tokens a month for extras, OurDream AI's Standard Monthly is $19.99 and runs on dreamcoins, and Nomi AI's Standard Plan Monthly is $15.99. Only Mars counts nothing.

What stands out now is how you pay. The subscription page says it is paid in cryptocurrency only. For a privacy-minded reader that may be a bonus. For most people it is a hurdle that settles the question before the price does.

Still, I'd rather pay the top price in the genre for no meter than a lower price that nickels me on every picture. My notes on how I check the apps say where these plan facts come from.

Where I hold back today is the money trail. The refund rule, as a secondary source quotes it, is "No refunds outside exceptional cases", and payment is crypto only. That combination leaves you very little room to undo a charge.

So my advice differs from how I started. I went straight onto Mars in June 2024. You now get only trial credits, so spend them first, and if they run out before you have decided, your own key with a provider like OpenRouter keeps you going while you make up your mind.

The plan card on this page lists everything Mars includes, and my take is that it is a fair deal once you know the platform suits you.

• Can you pay in cryptocurrency? If not, Mars is off the table.
• Are you fine with a web-only platform and no confirmed phone app?
• Will you set the tag filters before you browse the open library?
• Do you enjoy writing and directing characters, or would you rather pick one and chat?

If you said yes to crypto and filters, and "writing" to the last one, Chub AI deserves an evening of your trial credits. If not, I'd point you somewhere with a simpler start. OurDream AI charges non-subscribers 1 Dreamcoin per message, and its Standard Monthly plan at $19.99 adds unlimited messages plus image and video generation.

It counts coins where Chub does not, which I like less, but the road from sign-up to a first chat is shorter. For every other app on file, my full library of app reviews covers each one the same way.

My ranking of the two: Chub AI for control, OurDream AI for convenience.

That is the standard I want from any app, and I'm glad there is no support email to chase.

The refund rule is the part I don't love. The same source quotes it as "No refunds outside exceptional cases. The policy is firm on this." Next to crypto-only payment, that leaves little room to undo a charge.

Decide inside the trial credits, and if you subscribe, set a reminder well before the next billing date.

Two things are not known yet. No statement descriptor is on record, and the renewal wording was not on the subscription page, so automatic renewal is not confirmed officially. Better to flag that than to guess. With crypto as the only payment route, the card-statement worry may not apply to you, but the renewal question still does.

Before you leave, think about your characters. Exports were part of what kept me honest there, and I'd save a personal copy of every character you make, wherever you make it. If you are weighing a move to another hub, my Chub AI vs Janitor AI comparison sets the two side by side.

There is one narrow line in its docs: the data used to train Chub's own Mars model "does NOT include public or private chats taken from Chub AI". I'm glad it is said at all, but it covers one model's training, not a general promise about your chats.

What helps: characters can be private or unlisted, and self-hosting keeps the model on your own machine. My advice is simple. Leave real names, where you work and anything you'd hate to see leaked out of your chats, here or anywhere.

So what happened to Chub AI since my four months in 2024? Two changes stand out. The free side moved from a free tier to one-time trial credits, and other reviewers report that site traffic is down about 65% over recent months. Neither means it is closing.

Still, I wouldn't treat any single hub as a forever home for characters you spent weeks writing. If the site won't open for you, start with my Chub AI down check before you assume the worst.

Skip Chub AI if you want a phone app, live voice calls or a gentle, pre-sorted library. Unsure? Spend the trial credits, set your tag filters, and let that decide.

• A free plan that doesn't run out: Nomi AI keeps a free plan with no end date, 50 messages a day, each up to 400 characters.
• Pictures and video in one subscription: OurDream AI's Standard Monthly at $19.99 includes image and video generation.
• A cheap long commitment: Candy AI's 12-Month Plan works out to €3.99 a month, billed €47.88 upfront.
• Voice messages on a higher tier: GirlfriendGPT's Deluxe plan lists TTS voice messages and video generation.

My own ranking for most readers who land here: Nomi AI for a memory-minded companion on a free plan, OurDream AI if pictures matter most, and Chub AI only if an open catalog and a flat plan are exactly what you came for.

Moving on isn't a failure of taste. Chub AI asks for crypto, some patience and a willingness to write, and plenty of people simply want to open an app and talk. If you are choosing between the two big character names, my Chub AI vs Character AI comparison spells out the difference.

If crypto payment makes you uneasy, that alone is a fair reason to walk away, however good the chat sounds. The questions below cover what readers ask most, from the trial credits to privacy.