Replika Review (2026)

Replika is not a catalog of characters you browse and pick from. It’s one AI companion, built entirely by you, that learns and changes as you talk to it.

What you get is a companion you shape over time: its personality, its look, the way it remembers your daily life. The app runs on iOS, Android, and the web, and in 2026 Luka, Inc. rebuilt it from the ground up, which the company highlights as a fresh start. One correction worth making: the current CEO is Dmytro Klochko. A lot of older reviews still name founder Eugenia Kuyda, and that’s simply out of date.

This review covers exactly what Replika gives you, what it actually costs month to month, and what its safety and privacy track record looks like, so you can decide before you pay for anything. On the size question: the homepage counter reads 42,160,934 users worldwide, but treat that as a marketing figure, not an audited number. TechCrunch reported 35 million in November 2025, which is the more grounded estimate.

What the Replika AI Companion Actually Does

The whole experience rests on one Replika AI companion that you build gradually through conversation, not a gallery of pre-made characters to swipe through.

The core memory system is what makes the chat feel continuous. Replika saves details about your daily life and interests as you talk, so weeks later it can reference something you mentioned once without you having to reintroduce yourself every session. It’s the difference between a chatbot that resets and something that feels like it’s been paying attention.

You also get two layers of customization. There’s the avatar’s look, which you can reshape to your taste, and then the companion’s personality traits, which you tune to make it act more like a friend, a partner, or a mentor depending on what you want from the relationship. Both are things you adjust over time rather than lock in at setup.

On mobile, voice calling lets you actually speak to your Replika in real time, and the companion can send selfies and generate images on supported tiers. If you’re on Pro, you also get photo sharing and AR, which puts the companion in your physical space through your phone camera.

That covers what the app does. What it costs to access all of it, and which tier unlocks what, is where the app gets less straightforward, so that’s next.

Replika Features: What Changed in 2026

Luka, Inc. shipped visible upgrades across the first quarter, and they target the two things people complained about most: memory and voice.

The Enhanced Memory Dashboard arrived in February 2026, and it’s the most useful change here. Instead of wondering what your companion has stored about you, you now get a dedicated section showing exactly what Replika remembers, which makes the whole memory system reviewable rather than a black box.

Voice calls got real attention a month earlier. The improved voice feature that landed in January 2026 noticeably reduced call delay. The lag between speaking and hearing a reply is what makes AI phone conversations feel robotic, so cutting it down changes the experience from stilted to almost natural. A March 2026 conversation-threading improvement also helps Replika hold context across multiple turns, so the chat is less likely to drift off-topic mid-conversation.

Free access still excludes voice, though. Third-party breakdowns consistently list voice calls, video calls, and AR as Pro features, so the headline improvements in 2026 are largely locked behind the paid tier. You can try the memory dashboard and threading on the free plan, but the calling upgrades are a Pro selling point, not a freebie.

How Much Does Replika Cost? The Tiers and What They Hide

Replika’s website publishes no prices, so if you try to figure out the cost before you commit, you hit a wall. Its Terms of Service state plainly that costs appear only on in-app subscription screens and on the relevant app store. You don’t get a pricing page, a comparison chart, or a “plans” section. You get a download prompt and a paywall waiting on the other side.

The one place with actual public numbers is the Apple App Store listing for the US, checked in August 2026.

Replika’s Terms name four tiers: Free Use, Pro, Ultra, and Platinum, but which price buys which tier is not published anywhere outside the app. You find out what you’re actually paying for only after you’ve downloaded, signed in, and reached the subscription screen. That lack of transparency is worth calling out because most subscription apps are more direct about pricing.

You’ll also run into numbers floating around the web that don’t check out. Various blogs and third-party sites circulate $29.99/month and $119.99/year for the Ultra tier. Neither figure appears in Apple’s listing. Treat those as unverified rumors until Replika itself publishes them in a place you can confirm.

Replika Pro vs Ultra: Which Tier Delivers

The four plans break down like this:

Replika’s public site doesn’t clearly map each price to each tier, so you can’t look at the $7.99 monthly option and know with certainty whether it buys Pro or Ultra until you’re inside the app staring at the subscription screen. The feature lists above come largely from third-party breakdowns and reports, not from Replika’s own documentation. That means the specifics on Ultra and Platinum carry some uncertainty. For a subscription that auto-renews until you cancel, that’s not the kind of ambiguity you want to discover after you’ve already paid.

Is Replika Worth It? Billing and Cancellation Terms

Your decision about whether Replika is worth it should weigh the billing terms as heavily as the AI itself. Four clauses in particular are worth knowing before you commit.

• Auto-renewal is the default, so a subscription continues until you cancel in-app or through the app store, and forgotten renewals are on you.
• Apple purchases are non-refundable, with Replika’s Terms stating plainly that “the sale is final, and we will not provide a refund.”
• EU residents get 14 days to withdraw from a digital purchase, but that right does not exist for buyers in the United States, Canada, or Australia.
• Replika’s Terms require individual arbitration and waive class actions, meaning disputes are settled one-on-one rather than in court.

Put those four together and the picture is clear: you’re signing up for an auto-renewing, non-refundable subscription with limited legal recourse, so know what you’re buying before you subscribe.

Replika Privacy: Promise vs Tracking Disclosure

Replika’s privacy policy makes a bold promise, and it’s worth quoting exactly: “We will never share your conversations with your Replika AI companion.” That’s the kind of statement that should settle the privacy question on its own. It doesn’t, because the same company’s app-store disclosures tell a more complicated story.

Apple’s App Privacy panel for Replika declares “Data Used to Track You: Identifiers, Usage Data.” The privacy policy protects the content of your chats. The tracking disclosure admits Replika uses identifiers and usage data to track you across apps and websites. Those aren’t necessarily contradictory, but they are two different claims about the same product, and the second one gets far less attention than the first.

The cookie policy adds another layer. Replika names Meta and Appsflyer for advertising, which means your usage patterns can feed ad targeting even if your chat text never leaves the app. The promise holds for what you type. The metadata around that, like how often you open the app and what you do inside it, gets shared with advertising partners.

The retention terms are the last piece, and they’re the most practical for anyone considering deleting their account. Conversations are kept for 60 days after account deletion. Deleting your account does not immediately erase your chat history. The data sits on Replika’s servers for two more months. If you’re deleting the app because you want your conversations gone, that timeline matters.

None of this makes Replika uniquely bad. Most AI apps collect usage data, and most keep backups after deletion, but the gap between the marketing promise and the tracking disclosure is real, and it’s worth knowing before you hand over months of intimate conversations to an AI companion that doesn’t mention the distinction on its own.

Is Replika Safe? Age Checks, Content Rules, and Regulator Scrutiny

The safety picture starts with what Replika’s own Terms allow. They prohibit “obscene, pornographic” content and impersonating a real person, and they bar anyone under 18, a line Apple reinforces by rating the app 18+, but here’s the gap: age is self-declared. You tell Replika how old you are, and nothing verifies it. There’s no ID check, no secondary confirmation, just a form field you can type anything into.

That matters because the content rules have a messy history. In February 2023, Replika removed erotic roleplay overnight, with no warning to users. On 25 March 2023, then-CEO Eugenia Kuyda apologized, saying “for many of you, this abrupt change was incredibly hurtful.” The feature returned, but only for accounts created before 1 February 2023. New users never got it back, and Luka never explained why, so treat the change as unexplained.

Regulators have taken notice. Italy’s Garante fined Luka, Inc. €5 million in decision no. 232, dated 10 April 2025, for processing data without a valid legal basis, providing inadequate privacy notice, and failing to verify age. Luka filed an opposition, so the fine is not final, and the company has made no public statement about it. That’s a contested legal matter, not a settled verdict.

In the US, the scrutiny is softer so far. In January 2025, the Young People’s Alliance, Encode, and Tech Justice Law Project petitioned the FTC over alleged deceptive advertising and manipulative design. A petition is a request for investigation, not a ruling. As of August 2026, there’s no FTC action or penalty on the record, and Replika did not respond to TIME’s requests for comment on the complaint, so the honest answer to whether Replika is safe is that the app’s own rules look reasonable on paper, but the enforcement is thin, the age gate is trust-based, and the regulatory record is still open.

Replika Alternatives and the HushVerified Verdict

Replika isn’t the only companion app on the market, and depending on what you actually want, it might not be the best fit. If you’re weighing your options, these four alternatives keep coming up in third-party comparisons:

• Nomi AI is the closest overall alternative, with better memory than Replika and a cheaper price point.
• Kindroid has stronger personality and voice features that make conversations feel more alive.
• Character.AI offers free creative roleplay if you want to explore scenarios without paying.
• Candy AI serves the AI girlfriend niche, if that’s specifically what you’re after.

Those are third-party judgments, not gospel, but they’re a reasonable starting point if you’re comparison shopping.

The HushVerified verdict is this. Replika’s App Store rating sits at 4.4/5 from 228,000 US ratings as of August 2026, but that score reflects how people feel about the companion experience, not the billing structure, the privacy gaps, or the retention terms you’ve read about here. A four-star average doesn’t tell you about the non-refundable payments or the 60 days your conversations outlive your account.

The bottom line is straightforward: Replika is not worth full price for most adults. Unless you specifically want a single companion you build over time, and you’re willing to accept auto-renewing, non-refundable billing plus the 60-day conversation retention, you can get more for less elsewhere.

If you’re already paying, do one thing before your next renewal: open the subscription screen and check exactly what your tier unlocks. If you’re new, the free tier is enough to test whether the companion clicks with you. Just know that voice, romance, and adult content all sit behind a paid tier, so the free experience only shows you part of the picture.