PolyBuzz vs Chai: Real Monthly Cost 2026

On sticker price, PolyBuzz is the cheaper of the two: Poly Standard is $9.90 a month against Chai Premium at $13.99. On what you actually end up paying, the answer flips depending on one decision, and it is not which app you pick. It is whether you buy a weekly plan. Chai sells an Ultra subscription by the week at $19.99, which is about $86.62 a month if you keep it, while the same company's Premium Annual is $134.99, about $11.25 a month. That is a 7.7x spread inside one app. Every price on this page was read from the US App Store listings for both apps on 9 September 2026.

PolyBuzz vs Chai: every price, side by side

Neither company publishes a pricing page you can simply read before you install. Apple does, for both, because a US App Store listing prints the dollar price of every in-app purchase a developer configures, with no account and no download. Here is the whole board as Apple showed it on 9 September 2026.

Apple shows the ten most popular in-app purchases per app, so neither list is guaranteed complete, and Apple does not always state the billing period for a product. Where a period is not printed we have said so rather than guessed.

Which is cheaper, PolyBuzz or Chai?

PolyBuzz, if you both pay monthly. Poly Standard at $9.90 undercuts Chai Premium at $13.99 by four dollars a month, and PolyBuzz also has a genuine middle tier at $19.90 where Chai jumps straight from $13.99 to $29.99.

Chai, if you prepay for a year. Premium Annual at $134.99 works out at about $11.25 a month, and PolyBuzz lists no annual product at all, so there is no way to buy PolyBuzz down below $9.90. The gap is small either way. What is not small is the currency layer, and that is where the two apps genuinely differ.

PolyBuzz runs two currencies, not one

This is the part most comparisons miss. PolyBuzz sells Coins in four pack sizes at $2.49, $4.99, $9.99 and $19.90, and it separately sells Opals at $5.90 for a thousand. Two distinct currencies on one app, on top of four subscription tiers.

Two currencies is a meaningful complication for a buyer, because it means your subscription tier does not tell you what a month costs. You can be on the $9.90 plan and still be buying $19.90 of Coins, and you have no way to model that in advance. It is also why "how do Opals work in PolyBuzz" is one of the most searched questions about the app: people who already pay still cannot work out what they are paying for.

Chai is simpler here. It lists one currency, Pieces, at $2.79 for 200. Fewer moving parts, and the subscription is closer to being the whole bill. If you want the wider picture of which apps do this and how much it adds, we keep a running breakdown of AI girlfriend apps with token meters.

The weekly plan is the expensive one at both apps

Both companies sell by the week, and in both cases the weekly plan is the worst value on the listing.

Chai Ultra Weekly is $19.99. There are 52 weeks in a year, so a year of it costs $1,039.48, roughly $86.62 a month. Chai Ultra Monthly is $29.99 for what appears to be the same tier. If you want Ultra, the monthly product is about a third of the price of the weekly one over any period longer than a month, and Chai does not point that out anywhere.

PolyBuzz does the same thing more gently. Poly Standard Weekly at $4.99 is about $21.62 a month, against $9.90 for Poly Standard Monthly. Still more than double.

Neither is breaking a rule. Both prices are printed on Apple's listing for anyone who looks, and weekly billing suits someone who genuinely wants a few days of access. The problem is that a companion app is usually an impulse purchase, $4.99 reads as nothing, and the plan then renews quietly for months. Convert every price to a monthly figure before you tap buy. That single habit is worth more than picking the right app.

Chai lists two different prices for Premium

Apple's Chai listing shows a Premium Subscription (Monthly) at $13.99 and a separate Premium Membership at $9.99. Both are live products on the same listing.

This is not a mistake and it is not unique to Chai. App Store in-app purchase products keep appearing in the popularity ranking for as long as existing subscribers renew on them, so a listing preserves the prices a company has stopped offering to new customers. In plain terms, Chai has price cohorts: what you pay depends on when you signed up and which offer you happened to see.

Six of the eight major companion apps we priced on the same day showed the same pattern, which is the single biggest reason online answers about companion app pricing contradict each other. Everyone is quoting their own bill. The only number you can trust is the one on your own subscribe screen today. We put the full cross-app picture on our comparison of the best AI companion app by real 2026 prices.

Which one should you actually buy?

Buy PolyBuzz if you want the biggest character library and you pay monthly. It has 472,075 US ratings against Chai's 276,167, a 4.45 average against 4.33, and a cheaper entry tier with a real middle step at $19.90. Budget for Coins on top, and read what Opals do before you spend on them.

Buy Chai if you will prepay a year. Premium Annual at $134.99 is the cheapest committed route across both apps, the currency layer is simpler, and the app has been around long enough to have a settled community. Avoid the weekly Ultra plan unless you want exactly one week of it.

Buy neither if what you want is one companion who remembers you rather than a library to browse. Both of these are character platforms: thousands of user-made characters, roleplay threads, and a currency that meters the parts that cost the company money. That is a different product from a single ongoing relationship, and paying character-platform prices for it is the wrong shape. If the browsing is the appeal, though, be honest about that and pick something built for it, like a gallery of AI girlfriends you can browse by look and personality, rather than paying a subscription plus two currencies for a search function.

What we charge, so you can compare like for like

Tempted.ai is $9 a month billed yearly, or $12 month to month, for one companion who texts first and remembers your life. There are two higher plans at $19 and $39 if you want more, and there is no currency at all: nothing to top up, nothing to run out of mid-conversation, and long term memory sits on the base plan rather than a tier upgrade.

We are much smaller than either app here and we are not pretending otherwise. What we do have is a price you can read before you sign up, and no second number hiding behind it. If you want the per-app detail we keep separate pages for PolyBuzz pricing and Chai AI pricing, both updated from the same first-party listings.

Frequently asked questions

Is PolyBuzz cheaper than Chai?

On monthly billing, yes. Poly Standard is $9.90 a month against Chai Premium at $13.99. On annual billing Chai is cheaper, because Premium Annual at $134.99 works out at about $11.25 a month and PolyBuzz lists no annual product at all. Currency spend can reverse either answer.

How much does PolyBuzz cost per month?

Poly Standard is $9.90, Poly Premium is $19.90 and Poly Ultimate is $29.90 a month, read from Apple's US listing on 9 September 2026. A weekly Standard plan at $4.99 works out to about $21.62 a month. Coins and Opals are sold separately on top of all of these.

How much does Chai cost per month?

Chai Premium is $13.99 a month or $134.99 a year, about $11.25 a month. A second Premium Membership product is listed at $9.99, which is a legacy cohort price. Ultra is $29.99 monthly or $19.99 weekly, and the weekly plan is about $86.62 a month if you keep it.

What are Opals in PolyBuzz?

Opals are the second of PolyBuzz's two in-app currencies, sold at $5.90 per thousand, separate from Coins. Having two currencies means your subscription tier does not tell you what a month costs, because you can be on the cheapest plan and still be buying currency packs on top of it.

Is Chai Ultra worth it?

Only on the monthly product at $29.99. The weekly Ultra plan at $19.99 costs about $86.62 a month, roughly three times the monthly version of the same tier, and Chai does not flag that anywhere. If you want Ultra for longer than a week, buy it monthly.

Why do PolyBuzz and Chai show different prices for the same plan?

Because retired in-app purchase products stay on an App Store listing while existing subscribers keep renewing on them. Both apps have price cohorts, so what you pay depends on when you signed up. Six of the eight major companion apps we checked on 9 September 2026 showed the same pattern.