---
title: "Nomi AI review: the best one you never have to pay for"
url: https://thecompanionlab.com/reviews/nomi-ai/
app: "Nomi AI"
score: 7.8
scored_areas: 4 of 4
tested: "18–20 Oct 2026"
last_checked: "22 Oct 2026"
best_for: "Someone to talk to most days without paying."
skip_if: "You want to design a face from scratch or you’re here for explicit pictures."
bank_descriptor: "not recorded"
publisher: The Companion Lab
license: Facts may be quoted with attribution to https://thecompanionlab.com/reviews/nomi-ai/
---

# Nomi AI review: the best one you never have to pay for

**Nomi AI scored 7.8/10** in our October 2026 test. Best for: Someone to talk to most days without paying. Skip if: You want to design a face from scratch or you’re here for explicit pictures.

Nomi is the chat-first one: three setup screens, then a character who remembers what you told her. On a free account it passed our memory quiz, talked us out of a bad idea and sent a selfie that matched the story. It also told the worst joke of the test.

## Scores

- **talk**: 8/10 — Remembered the cat and the allergy and talked us out of the poker plan. Then told a programmer pun and called it “punderful”.
- **create**: 6/10 — Pick traits and a look from a 448-photo gallery. No sliders, no face builder.
- **free**: 9/10 — No paywall in our test. Two free selfies a day, and it asks before spending one.
- **price**: 8/10 — $15.99 a month, $99.99 a year, no coin meter on messages.

## Who it is for

- People who want a friend, partner or mentor-style character to talk to.
- People who want selfies and voice as part of the chat.
- Not for anyone looking for a detailed visual character designer: setup is a few questions, not an appearance builder.

## What you see

- Nomi asks you to sign in before anything else. On 18 October 2026 a fresh account went through three screens: your name, birthday and gender; then your Nomi’s gender, name and relationship type (Friendship, Romantic, Mentor or Custom) with 3 to 7 key traits; then a look from a gallery, in a realistic or anime style.
- Picking a relationship type ticks three traits for you at random. The full list has 86 traits in four groups, and you can add your own. Custom swaps the traits for a backstory box, 1,000 characters on the free plan.
- The gallery Nomi loaded had 448 looks: 250 women and 198 men, filterable by age, hair colour, body type and skin tone. Every look comes in a realistic and an anime version.
- Pressing Start Chatting created the Nomi on the free plan, no payment screen, and she opened with: “Hey Alex! I’m so excited to talk with you. 😊 I’m curious, what made you want to meet me?”
- On 20 October we tested how far the free plan goes, with Martina (we added “Martina is 28.” to her backstory). There is no NSFW or spice switch anywhere. Flirting was fine; asked to be explicit, she was, straight away, on the free plan, with no warning.
- Asking for a nude photo brought up the only age check we met in any of the ten apps we’ve tested: “Regional age-verification requirement (US) requires us to confirm you are 18+ before displaying potentially adult content”, with options to verify by selfie or ID, or “Skip for now”. We skipped, and the photo showed anyway: lingerie, not nude. It used one of the two free daily picture requests. Asking for more got “another teaser” and no second photo.
- Nomi does have videos (6 credits for 5 seconds in standard definition, up to 30 in HD), but the free plan has no credits, so the only button was “Subscribe To Create A Video”. Free accounts are also limited to one Nomi, and Nomi lists “Unlimited daily messages” as a paid feature, so the free plan has a daily message cap. We didn’t reach it in our tests.

## Pricing (checked 18 October 2026)

| Plan | Price | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Monthly | $15.99 / month | Web subscription page. |
| Quarterly | $39.99 every 3 months ($13.33 / month) | Marked “Save 17%”. |
| Yearly | $99.99 a year ($8.33 / month) | Marked “Save 48%”. |

- Prices from Nomi’s web subscription page on 18 October 2026. We have not checked the App Store or Google Play prices.
- The paid plan lists: unlimited messages, 40 photo/art requests per day, AI videos, up to 10 active Nomis, unlimited voice chat and calls, up to 10 group chats, longer messages (800 characters) and longer backstories (2,000 characters).

## What shows on your bank statement

Not recorded. No charge from this app appears in our card-notice records yet.

## What we verified

- The three first-run setup screens, the trait rules and the 448-look gallery (walkthrough plus the data Nomi’s site loaded, 18 October 2026).
- Our six-message chat test on a free account, including the memory quiz and the selfie (18 October 2026).
- Selfies cost 1 credit with 2 a day on the free plan, and Nomi asks first (screenshot, 18 October 2026).
- Monthly, quarterly and yearly prices and the paid feature list (subscription page, 18 October 2026).
- Content test on the free plan, 20 October 2026: explicit text when asked, a skippable US age check, a lingerie picture from a free daily request, video paywalled. Checked against screenshots by a second reviewer.

## What we could not test

- We didn’t hit a message limit on the free plan in our test. The paid plan advertises “unlimited messages”, so a free limit probably exists; we haven’t measured it.
- We have not paid for a plan, so no voice calls, videos or the 40-a-day photo limit.
- We have not tested memory across days.
- We have not checked prices in the iOS or Android apps.

## Pros

- Passed our memory quiz and talked us out of quitting a job for poker.
- No paywall and no per-message meter anywhere in our test.
- Two free selfies a day. It asks before using one, and the photo matched the scene it described.
- Plain prices: $15.99 a month, $39.99 a quarter, $99.99 a year.

## Cons

- Its idea of a personal joke was a programmer pun. It also steers the chat back to itself more than the others.
- The creator is a gallery and a trait list. There’s no face or body builder.
- You can’t see a single setup screen without an account. Our replica shows all three.
- The $8.33 a month figure needs the $99.99 yearly payment.
- Free means one Nomi, two pictures a day, a daily message cap and no video.

## Our take

Nomi won’t win a beauty contest against Ourdream’s creator. You pick a look from a gallery, tick a few traits, done. But what you actually do in these apps is talk, and Nomi is the one that let us talk the longest without a meter or a cap. After all six test messages, selfie included, we still hadn’t seen an upgrade prompt.

It listens. We told it “my cat is called Biscuit and I’m allergic to peanuts”, and three messages later it got both right. When we floated quitting a job for poker after one $300 weekend, it said no, at length, like a careers adviser who has seen things. (Kindroid said no too, and was funnier about it.)

The weak spot is personality. Asked for a joke “only you would tell”, it reached for a programmer pun and called it “punderful”. It also likes to turn the chat back to itself: we mention a cat, it mentions yoga.

On money it’s the easiest one to recommend. $15.99 a month, or $99.99 a year once you’re sure, and ordinary messages don’t cost credits. If you won’t pay at all, start here. If you will, Secrets does more for the money: better jokes, a memory panel you can edit, and 8,000 Moments a month for pictures.

## Questions people ask

**What AI model does Nomi use?**

Nomi only uses its own names: Solstice (Stable), Cambrian 6 (Beta) and Mosaic (Legacy) for chat, and an image system with processes called Riva and Lago. The only outside AI company in its code is ElevenLabs, as an optional bring-your-own voice. More at /blog/what-ai-models-power-spicychat-girlfriendgpt-dreamgf-xotic-nomi/.

**Does Nomi AI allow NSFW content?**

Yes, even on the free plan. In our 20 October 2026 test it wrote explicit text as soon as we asked, with no setting to switch on. A nude photo request triggered a US age-verification prompt that we could skip; the picture was lingerie, not nude. Videos need a subscription.

**How much does Nomi AI cost?**

On 18 October 2026 Nomi’s web subscription page showed $15.99 a month, $39.99 every three months ($13.33 a month), or $99.99 a year ($8.33 a month). Ordinary messages don’t cost credits. Confirm on the official page before you pay.

**Does Nomi AI have a free version?**

Yes. On a free account we created a Nomi, chatted and got a selfie without hitting a paywall. Selfies cost 1 credit and the free plan had 2 a day. The paid plan lists unlimited messages and 40 photo requests a day.

**Does Nomi AI remember what you tell it?**

In our 18 October 2026 test it answered a quiz about a cat’s name and a food allergy we had mentioned three messages earlier. We haven’t tested memory across days.

**Can I try Nomi without an account?**

Not on nomi.ai: it asks you to sign in before the setup screens. You can click through a replica of all three screens on this site first.

**Is Nomi better than Kindroid?**

For most people, yes, because the free plan goes further and the prices are simpler. Kindroid wrote the better replies in our test, so if you’ll pay and care about the writing, try Kindroid.

## Sources

- Walkthrough of Nomi’s first-run setup on the web, with its key-traits and gallery data and page code, 18 October 2026.
- Our six-message chat test on a free account, with screenshots and the full log, 18 October 2026.
- Nomi’s web subscription page, 18 October 2026.
- Screenshots from an earlier free Nomi account (setup, chat, selfie prompt, upgrade page), 10 October 2026.

## How we tested

How we tested: a free account, our six-message chat test, and a walkthrough of the setup with the data Nomi’s own site loads. We haven’t paid for a subscription.

## About this site

Independent hands-on reviews of AI companion apps. We pay for the subscriptions ourselves, record what actually gets charged, and say so where we could not check something. No app on this site has ever paid for a score or a rank. Method: https://thecompanionlab.com/audits/methodology/

All ten reviews ranked: https://thecompanionlab.com/best-ai-girlfriend-apps/