Kindroid ended its Lite model and unlimited free messaging: what free accounts get now

Kindroid no longer has a permanent free plan. On October 1, 2026 the company retired its Lite model and unlimited free messaging, according to its Help Center update log. A new account now gets a one-time preview, and when the preview runs out the account turns read-only until its owner starts a trial or subscribes.

What changed on October 1

Kindroid wrote that it had “seen some questions and confusion following the changes that took effect on October 1”, and the update log answers in one line: “The previous Lite model and unlimited free messaging have been retired.” Free accounts now get a limited number of interactions on what Kindroid calls its flagship-quality model. Once they are used up, the account is read-only and a trial or subscription is needed to generate new messages. Kindroid adds that the subscription or trial prompt a person then sees on sending a message doesn’t mean a trial or subscription has started automatically.

Two other things ended the same day. Kindroid retired the V1 interface, so V2 is now the only one, and it removed the V7 Equinox and V7.5 Prism models.

What a new free account gets

The Subscriptions page, updated October 30, lists the one-time preview for new accounts:

• 50 messages with standard paid memory (15 in some regions). Regenerate, continue and message suggestions count as half a message each.
• 5 selfies in total: one at signup, then one every 2 hours until all 5 are granted. An account can hold up to 2 at a time.
• 5,000 audio credits for voice on messages.
• Up to 2 Kindroids.

The Subscriptions page describes the preview as running on the flagship model. A later note in the update log says free previews and the 3-day trial always use the Ember model, whatever model is selected, and that the newer Polaris model needs a paid subscription.

The preview is a one-off. Starting a trial or subscription ends it permanently, it doesn’t return after a cancellation, and deleting an account doesn’t reset it.

Accounts that were already free

Per the Subscriptions page, free accounts that were recently active when the change rolled out received a final 50 messages on the flagship model. Accounts that had been inactive became read-only. No new selfies or audio are granted, and existing selfie and audio balances are kept but locked.

The update log says the same about former Lite users: a final batch of 50 interactions on October 1 (Kindroid notes they became available when the change took effect, so some may already be used), and a later correction that this batch only went to Lite accounts active shortly before the change.

What read-only means

A read-only account can view, play back, export and delete everything. Kindroids, memories, chats, media and balances are kept. It can’t send messages, regenerate replies, make calls or receive proactive messages.

Kindroid’s privacy policy says the self-serve data export is available once every 30 days from Profile, under Preferences at the bottom. Deleting a Kindroid or the whole account takes effect 24 hours after the request.

The 3-day trial

New users are eligible for a 3-day premium trial. It needs a payment method on file and converts into a subscription automatically unless it is cancelled within the trial. It is available on iOS, Android and web. On web, Kindroid asks for a verified mobile phone number to prevent trial abuse, and in some regions the trial isn’t offered on web at all. Anyone who would rather skip the phone check can subscribe on web without the trial.

Audio credits are split: 150,000 at the start of the trial and 850,000 when it converts to a paid plan. Chats during the trial use the Ember model.

Prices: web and iPhone

The Help Center no longer prints subscription prices. It says the exact price for your country and platform appears at checkout, and that buying on the web is usually cheaper than through the App Store or Google Play.

The prices below come from two places: the US App Store’s in-app purchase list, as recorded on October 27, and a Wayback Machine copy of the Help Center page further down. The App Store lists:

• 1 month: $15.99
• 3 months: $42.99
• 1 year: $159.99

For direct web purchases, a copy of the same Help Center page archived by the Wayback Machine on August 22, 2026 (the page then read “Updated Jul 7, 2026”) listed $13.99 for 1 month, $37.99 for 3 months and $139.99 for 1 year. The same archived page listed the iPhone prices as $15.99, $42.99 and $159.99. That makes the web price $2.00 less per month, $5.00 less per quarter and $20.00 less per year. The live page no longer prints those figures, so treat them as the last published web prices and check the checkout screen before paying.

Lapsed subscribers may be offered 50% off the first month when they resubscribe. Kindroid says that offer can be used once.

The iPhone app itself is still on the App Store: Apple’s lookup returned a listing in all 52 storefronts checked on October 27. Four other companion apps have disappeared from it, as covered in this post on the missing iPhone apps.

One-time 50 versus 50 a day

Free access is set up differently across the apps CrushRated tracks. Nomi’s wiki lists a free plan with 50 messages a day, which over a week is 350 messages, seven times Kindroid’s one-time 50. Janitor AI lists unlimited free chats on its standard chat models with a context limit of about 9k tokens. Character.AI said in September that free messaging stays unlimited, with ads. Replika’s help page describes “Free Use” as limited access that “may be denied at Replika’s discretion.”

Of the four, Kindroid’s is the only free allowance described in these sources as a one-time amount. After the 50 messages, the account can still be opened and read, but not written to.