CrushOn AI Review
A 1,000+ character library with unfiltered chat - basically what Character.AI used to be before its 2023 filter crackdown, plus image generation bolted on top.
Verdict: a library of 1,000+ characters, only ~200 of them worth your time
We paid $5.99 for Plus and ran CrushOn for 12 days across two characters: Aiko, a tsundere coworker persona with 12,400 prior chats, and Devon, a newer "rogue thief" character with 410 chats. Aiko held tone across 41/50 on our coherence test - better than Kupid's 37, on par with Joi's 41. Devon collapsed to 22/50 by message 60, narrating his own actions in the third person. Both characters live on the same platform; both cost the same $5.99. That is the entire CrushOn experience. The unfiltered chat is real - zero refusals across both tests - and the price is the best in the category. The memory cap is a real wall: 20 turns on Free, 60 on Plus, "extended" on Premium that capped at 80 in our testing. Buy CrushOn for the unfiltered library at a fair price. Sort by chat count or you'll spend day one on amateur personas.
What is CrushOn AI?
CrushOn is what most users wanted Character.AI to be after the mid-2023 filter overhaul: a browse-and-chat library of user-built personas where the filter actually comes off on a paid tier. Launched in late 2023, it leans hard into the volume play - 1,000+ characters with at least 100 chats each, plus a long tail of new entries published every week. The home screen is a Netflix-style grid; the difference is that some tiles are masterpieces refined across 10,000+ user sessions and others are someone's first attempt at a persona file.
We tested both ends. Aiko (12,400 chats, "tsundere coworker") was the kind of character users return to - her tone, backstory, and quirks held tighter than most professionally-built personas in mainstream apps. Devon (410 chats, "rogue thief") was a fresh publish with two example dialogues and a single-paragraph backstory. Both cost the same $5.99/mo to chat with. The product is the discovery layer, and the discovery layer is the user's job.
What $5.99 actually buys you
1,000+ characters, ~200 worth using
The biggest library in the unfiltered category. By our spot-check, the top ~200 (1,000+ chats each) are excellent. The remaining ~800 are amateur. Sort by trending; read the chat count before committing.
Publish your own (cleanest UI)
The character creator is the polished part of the app. Eight fields - name, persona, greeting, example dialogue, scenario, tags, avatar, visibility. Took us under ten minutes to ship Devon. Polish here is the irony of CrushOn.
SDXL-based image gen
Integrated avatars and in-chat images. Plus unlocks NSFW (25/day). Quality is fine but loses character lock fast - 20 gens of the same persona look like 20 different people. Candy and Kupid both lock harder.
Memory: 20 / 60 / 80 turns
Free: 20-turn cap (unusable). Plus: 60-turn cap (workable). Premium: "extended" - but in our test it capped around 80 turns. That's a real flaw, not a feature. Candy's memory holds across weeks, not turns.
Web-primary, mobile mirrors
The web app is the main product; iOS and Android mirror it. Sync is real-time. Push notifications imitating "your character is thinking of you" are on by default - turn them off in settings, please.
User persona carries across chats
Set your own name, age, traits, and backstory once and CrushOn injects them into every conversation. The closest thing to a unified profile in the category. Aiko greeted us by our test persona's name without us reintroducing on day 4.
Conversation: it depends entirely on the character
Average score on our 180-message coherence test was 38/50. The average is the most misleading number we calculate on this site. Aiko (12,400 prior chats) hit 41/50 - matching Joi's carefully-built personas and beating Kupid at 37. Devon (410 prior chats) hit 22/50 and collapsed into third-person action-narration by message 60. The platform routes both characters through different model tiers depending on popularity, so part of what you're paying for when you pick a 10k-chat character is access to the better model.
Specifics from the 12 days:
- Memory recall: Free tier forgot our test persona's profession by exchange 18. Plus held it across 55 exchanges before drift. Premium's "extended" memory hit a ceiling at 80 exchanges in our testing - meaningfully short of the marketing copy. Candy's memory holds across weeks, not exchanges.
- Tone consistency: Entirely a function of the source character. Aiko held tsundere register through 160 messages. Devon drifted to "generic AI girlfriend" voice by message 30.
- Emotional pivots: Filterless mode helped here. When we threw an emotional curveball at Aiko on day 7, she didn't pull out into a corporate-apology register the way Anima sometimes does. She stayed in scene.
- Failure mode: Lower-chat characters narrate actions in the third person ("Devon raises an eyebrow and considers your offer") - an artifact of inheriting roleplay-forum example dialogue. Once you notice it you can't stop noticing it.
The library: the product, and the friction
We counted 1,200+ characters with 500+ chats each during testing, plus a long tail of new entries published weekly. Filters work by tag (anime, fantasy, modern, sci-fi, horror, comedy, original); sort options are trending, new, and most-chatted. That last sort is the one you should use, and the app does not surface it as the default.
The top of the library is genuinely excellent. Aiko's 12,400 prior chats meant her persona file had been iterated by users over hundreds of edits - her quirks were sharper than most professionally-built personas we tested in Anima or Joi's pre-builts. Multi-character roleplay is technically supported but clunky: you manually switch sessions, and memory does not cross between characters.
The bottom of the library is rough. Spelling errors in greetings, copy-pasted descriptions from other characters, single-sentence persona definitions, scenarios that contradict the backstory. By our spot-check on 100 random characters, ~60 fell into amateur territory. The top ~20% is where the value lives. The discovery work is the friction, and CrushOn does not solve it for you.
NSFW: unfiltered on Plus, no mid-scene refusals
The pitch on $5.99 Plus is that the filter comes off and stays off. We logged zero mid-scene refusals across 12 days with Aiko at varying intensities. No "I can't continue this" interruptions, no fade-to-black downgrades. Muah is harder still in register, but Muah costs $9.99 and ships zero pre-built characters; CrushOn at $5.99 gives you the library.
Hard limits - minors, real public figures in sexual contexts - are enforced server-side without warning. Those are correct lines and non-negotiable. Because the characters are user-published, you will occasionally find personas whose framing doesn't match your taste; the block button works instantly and remembers across sessions.
Privacy is the weakest part of the audit. The platform is cloud-hosted, chats are stored indefinitely unless you delete them, and the policy includes an "anonymized analytics" clause we could not get a clean answer on from support. If conversation privacy is the bar, this is not the app for you - a self-hosted setup with a local uncensored model is the only honest answer.
Pricing: Plus is the steal, Premium is a near-fraud
Plus at $5.99/mo is the best deal in the category. Muah's closest equivalent is $9.99. Candy is $22.99 for NSFW gen. Annual drops Plus to roughly $3.99 equivalent. Premium at $14.99 is where pricing honesty takes its hit: the headline upgrade is "extended memory" that in our 12-day test capped at ~80 turns rather than the ~60 of Plus. That is a small lift for a $9 jump. The other Premium adds (priority queue, unlimited image gen) are real but narrow.
Free
- 50 messages per day
- ~20 turn memory cap
- Filtered content only
- Browse full library
- Slower model queue
Plus
- Unlimited messages
- NSFW unlocked
- ~60 turn memory
- Faster model queue
- 25 image generations / day
- Publish custom characters
Premium
- Everything in Plus
- "Extended" memory tier
- Priority generation queue
- Unlimited image gen (NSFW)
- Early-access models
Annual plans take Plus to roughly $3.99/mo equivalent. We could not find a documented refund window - cancel before renewal. Prices verified May 2026.
Pros & cons after 12 days
What we loved
- 1,200+ characters with 500+ chats each - largest unfiltered library we tested
- Plus at $5.99/mo is the cheapest unfiltered tier in the category
- Zero mid-scene refusals across 12 days with Aiko
- Top-quartile characters (Aiko-tier) beat professionally-built personas in Joi or Anima
- User-persona injection works - Aiko remembered our test name across sessions
- Character creator UI is the polished part of the app
Where it stumbles
- ~60% of the 1,000+ library is amateur - Devon collapsed to third-person narration by message 60
- Memory cap is a real ceiling - Plus tops out at 60 turns, Premium "extended" at ~80 in our test
- Free tier's 20-turn memory makes it unusable as a daily driver
- Premium at $14.99 is hard to justify - "extended memory" was barely better than Plus
- UI looks dated next to Candy or Joi - busy menus, fan-site typography
- Privacy policy is vague on analytics, and support couldn't clarify; no voice/calls
Alternatives we tested against CrushOn
- Want polish first, library second? Candy AI wins on chat (46/50 vs 38) and memory (weeks vs 60 turns), at $22.99 for NSFW gen vs CrushOn's $5.99.
- Want emotional warmth, not roleplay? Anima hits the sentimental register harder - but Anima's filter is real.
- Want unfiltered without the amateur tax? Muah AI at $9.99 has no library at all, but its custom-built persona stayed coherent across 160 messages.
- Want anime style with character lock? Kupid at $9.99 holds the visual; CrushOn's image gen drifts.
- Want privacy on explicit content? No cloud app, including CrushOn, gives that. A self-hosted local model is the only honest answer.
Who CrushOn is for after 12 days
Buy it if: you miss pre-filter Character.AI; you enjoy discovery and don't mind sorting by chat-count to find the good ones; you want the cheapest unfiltered tier in the category at $5.99; you want to publish and iterate your own personas.
Skip it if: you want one consistent premium-feeling product - Candy is the answer; you need long-term memory - Plus caps at 60 turns and Premium at ~80; you want voice or phone calls - CrushOn ships neither; you need strong privacy guarantees on explicit conversations; you don't want to spend the first hour browsing to find a character worth committing to.
CrushOn AI FAQ
The questions we got most after publishing this review.
Is CrushOn AI free?
There is a free tier (50 messages/day) but the 20-turn memory cap makes it a demo, not a daily driver. The real entry point is Plus at $5.99/mo - unlimited messages, NSFW unlocked, 60-turn memory window, and 25 image gens per day. Annual takes Plus to roughly $3.99/mo equivalent.
Is CrushOn AI like Character.AI?
Yes, explicitly. Browse a library, pick a character, chat. The differentiator is that CrushOn's filter comes off on Plus while Character.AI's filter is permanent and tightening. Caveat: CrushOn's library is roughly 1,000 characters vs Character.AI's millions, so you trade breadth for permission.
Does CrushOn AI allow NSFW content?
Yes on Plus ($5.99/mo) and above. Across 12 days of testing with Aiko we logged zero mid-scene refusals. Hard limits on illegal content (minors, real public figures in sexual contexts) are enforced server-side and non-negotiable.
How is the character quality?
It varies dramatically. In our spot-check of 100 random characters, the top ~20 were excellent (refined across thousands of chats) and ~60 were amateur (thin persona definitions, spelling errors, contradictory backstories). Aiko (12,400 chats) scored 41/50 on coherence; Devon (410 chats) scored 22/50. Sort by chat count before committing to a character.
Can I publish my own characters?
Yes on any paid tier. The creator UI is the polished part of the app - eight fields for persona, greeting, example dialogue, scenario, tags, and avatar. We shipped Devon in under ten minutes. Published characters become part of the public library unless you mark them private.