Lerk AI review: an honest look from the team that builds it

What is Lerk AI?

Lerk AI, at the address Lerk.ai, is an AI companion website for adults 18 and over. You chat with realistic and anime AI girlfriends and AI boyfriends, each a fictional character with their own looks, personality and way of texting. You can pick one from the catalog or design your own, ask for photos in the middle of a conversation, and use a studio to make photos and short videos of the companions you like.

It helps to be clear about what is on the other side of the conversation. Every companion is an AI character, and every image and video is generated by AI. There are no actual people or performers involved, Lerk AI doesn't accept photo uploads, and no companion is based on anyone who exists. All of them are adults, and the same safety rules apply in every chat mode and on every plan.

Lerk AI is made by Lerk Studios, Inc., a company incorporated in Delaware, USA. If the idea of an AI companion is new to you, start with what an AI girlfriend is; this review assumes you know the general idea and want to know how Lerk AI in particular works.

Signing up, and what a free account includes

The first thing you see on Lerk.ai is an adults-only age check. After that, browsing is free and so is creating an account. You can sign in with email, Google or Apple, and your conversations follow you from one device to the next.

A free account includes a limited number of messages every 24 hours. Lerk AI sets that allowance and has changed it before, so we don't quote a number here. Once you verify your email you also get a one-time gift of 120 stars, claimable once per device. Stars are Lerk AI's credits: they pay for photos, videos, unlocking photos in chat, creating characters and bundles, which are curated photo and video sets of a companion.

What a free account doesn't include, and the VIP and Lerker plans add:

• Unlimited messages instead of a daily allowance
• A monthly allowance of stars
• Deeper memory, so companions recall much further back
• Companions who may message you first after you've been away
• Discounts on bundles, and extra chat themes
• Star packs, which only subscribers can buy

Our advice is to use the free account properly before paying for anything. Talk to two or three companions, try both chat modes, and spend the welcome stars in the studio. By then you'll know whether the daily limit bothers you.

Finding a companion on Explore

As of October 29, 2026 the catalog has 206 ready-made companions: 170 AI girlfriends and 36 AI boyfriends, of which 129 are realistic and 77 are anime. Each one has a profile with photos and a short bio, and every one of them is an adult.

Explore is where you browse them. You can filter by gender, style and age, save the ones you like to your Favorites, and the more profiles you open, the more the feed leans toward your type. On the home feed, a companion's cover video starts playing when you stop scrolling. Tap a companion to read their profile, then start a chat.

A practical tip: personality matters more than looks once a conversation gets going. Read the bio before you start, because a shy, sweet companion and a confident, teasing one will take the same opening message in very different directions.

How chatting works: Texting and Roleplay

When you start a chat, you choose how it works, and that choice holds for the whole conversation:

• Texting. You and the companion are apart. They are out living their own life and message you the way someone you're seeing would: plain messages, often several short ones in a row, with no narration.
• Roleplay. You are in the scene together. The companion narrates what they do as well as what they say, like a story you're both in.

Separately, you set the mood. Flirty is warm, playful and romantic; Spicy is more direct, bold and intense. Unlike the mode, the mood can be changed at any point in the conversation, and the same safety rules apply either way.

Before the first message you can pick an optional opening scenario. In Texting it answers “what are they up to right now?”, so the chat starts as if it were already in motion; in Roleplay it sets the scene you both step into. You see six suggestions at a time, can ask for others or let Lerk AI surprise you, or you can skip it and simply say hello. Your own messages can be up to 2,000 characters long.

In our experience Texting suits short check-ins through the day, and Roleplay suits longer sessions where you want a story. Trying the other mode with the same companion means starting a fresh conversation, without the old one's memory, so it is worth choosing with a little care. There is more on this in how Texting, Roleplay and mood work.

Memory, and how the relationship develops

Every conversation on Lerk AI has its own long-term memory. The companion keeps track of what is happening between you, brings back details you shared earlier, adapts to the way you text and takes the lead now and then, while staying true to their personality.

How far back that memory reaches depends on your plan. A free account recalls the recent past, while VIP and Lerker reach much further back: the store lists “4x Memory Recall (Vs Free)” for VIP and “6x” for Lerker. Over time the relationship also moves through stages, from getting to know each other to getting closer to very close, and it never moves backward.

On the paid plans, a companion you've been talking to may message you first after you've been away for a while. And if you want a clean slate, Restart begins a fresh conversation in which the companion won't remember what you talked about, while Delete removes the chat altogether. How Lerk AI's memory works covers the details, including what memory can't do.

Creating your own companion

If none of the ready-made companions is quite right, the companion creator builds one with you in six steps:

1. Style: realistic or anime, and a woman or a man.
2. Appearance: ethnicity and skin tone.
3. Hair: hairstyle, eye color and hair color.
4. Body: build and proportions.
5. Personality: name and age, temperament, occupation, how you know each other and their interests.
6. Summary: check everything over before it's made.

Lerk AI then makes the companion's first portrait, and they are ready to chat. Every companion must be 18 or older. Creating one costs 60 stars. What you make is private to your account: nobody else can see your creations or chat with them. The full walkthrough, with tips on picking a personality that chats well, is in creating your own AI companion.

Photos in chat and locked photos

You can ask a companion for a photo in the conversation, or tap the photo button. Before you send, you see what it will cost in stars, and the photo arrives in the chat once it's ready. Nothing is charged without the price on screen first.

Now and then a companion sends a surprise photo of their own, shown as a locked card with a blurred preview. Looking at the preview is free; unlocking it costs 60 stars, and once unlocked it is yours to keep.

The photo and video studio

For more control there is the studio. It makes photos from presets, where you choose a pose, an outfit and a scene, or from a prompt you write yourself, in portrait, square or landscape. You can also start from a photo you've saved and edit it.

Videos start from a photo, saved or new, and come out as a short clip with generated sound, in HD (720p) or Full HD (1080p), anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds long. A clip takes a few minutes to render, so this is not instant. As of October 29, 2026, a photo costs 60 stars and a video starts at 600 stars.

Two things we think are worth knowing. If a generation fails or is blocked by a safety check, its stars come back automatically. And your gallery is private to you. The full cost table is in photos and videos on Lerk AI.

Pricing in brief

There are two plans, VIP and Lerker, each billed monthly or yearly. Both add unlimited messages, a monthly star allowance, deeper memory, bundle discounts, proactive messages and chat themes. Lerker adds more on top; the store lists a bonus on every star pack, a “Priority Generation Queue” and “Advanced Customization”.

Paying yearly is cheaper per month: VIP works out to $9.99 a month on the yearly plan, against $19.99 on monthly billing. A few rules are worth knowing before you subscribe. Monthly allowance stars don't roll over, even on a yearly plan, while stars you buy don't expire, and the allowance is spent first. Card plans renew automatically until you cancel, which you can do at any time in the app; you keep access to the end of the period you paid for. Lerk AI's current prices are explained in full on their own page.

Privacy, payments and safety in brief

• Your chats, characters and media are private to your account and never published. Lerk AI doesn't sell conversations or use them to target ads, and you can delete chats, characters and media whenever you like.
• Card payments go through a secure payment processor, so your card details never reach Lerk AI. Your statement shows “Lerk Studios”, never what you bought, and receipts mention only stars and your plan. Star packs and yearly plans can also be paid with crypto.
• Messages, prompts and media are checked for safety automatically, with the same rules in every chat mode and on every plan.
• Lerk AI is for adults 18 and over, or older where local law requires it. Its safety page lists support resources by region and is clear that companions are no replacement for professional care, emergency services or relationships with people.

The longer answer, with what each policy says, is in is Lerk AI safe and private?

Languages and devices

Lerk AI runs in the web browser on desktop and mobile. There is nothing to install and no version in an app store; you sign in on whatever device you have, and your conversations are there. It is available in English, Spanish, French, German and Japanese.

You can also set a nickname, which is what companions call you instead of your username. It is a small touch, but it makes conversations feel more personal from the first message.

Pros and cons

This is our own list, as the people who build Lerk AI. We have kept the downsides in on purpose: they are the things we would want to know before signing up.

The refund rules are in Lerk AI's refund policy, which asks for requests to support@lerk.ai, preferably within 14 days.

Who Lerk AI is for, and who it isn't

Lerk AI suits adults who want an ongoing companion conversation rather than a one-off chat: someone to text through the day, or a story to play out in the evening, with a character who remembers what happened last time. It suits people who like to design things themselves, since the creator lets you decide everything from style to personality, and people who want photos and short videos to go with the chat.

It is not the right choice if you want spoken conversations, an app to install, a fully free experience with no message limit, or a general-purpose assistant for work and study. It also won't make a companion from a photo of you or anyone else. If any of those is what you're after, when an alternative to Lerk AI makes more sense goes through the kinds of apps to look at instead.

How we wrote this review

We work at Lerk Studios, the company that makes Lerk AI, so this review was written from the inside. Here is how we kept it useful anyway:

• Every feature described here was checked against Lerk AI's code and live data.
• Prices, star costs, video lengths, languages and catalog counts are read live from Lerk AI's public data and refreshed every six hours, with the date shown next to them.
• Policy details are summarised from the documents published on Lerk.ai, and linked so you can check.
• Features that are announced but not yet available are left out.
• There are no scores, star ratings, testimonials or user numbers, and no claims about other apps.

If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will fix it. Our editorial approach is explained on the About page, and the contact page says how to send a correction.

Our verdict

This is the publisher's opinion, plainly labelled. We think Lerk AI does the core of an AI companion well: conversations that remember, a clear choice between texting and roleplay, and a creator that lets you make the companion you actually want. Photos and videos are a real addition rather than an afterthought, and the billing is discreet.

It is not for everyone. If you want calls, an installed app or a completely free experience, look elsewhere. If you are curious, the sensible next step costs nothing: sign up, talk to a couple of companions on the free account, and decide from there. When you are ready to compare plans, see what Lerk AI costs today.

Frequently asked questions