Nectar.ai
#40 on the ranking
Nectar is the best character builder in its price band, run by a real company, and after a month with it I would still pay the annual plan.
Read my full Nectar.ai analysis →AI girlfriend sites side by side · Both tested first-hand · Data through September 2026
vs
I bought a membership on both and tested each for a month. What they offer, their measured numbers and what their users say, next to each other, with my verdict on each at the end.
The scoreboard
Candy AI leads on 3 of the 4 figures that decide most choices.
In short
| What they offer | ||
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | ▲Yes | No |
| Entry paid plan | Free | $13.99/mo |
| Adult content | Allowed on paid plans | Allowed on paid plans |
| Features |
|
|
| Best for | Users wanting a warm companion personality alongside full adult content and payment privacy via crypto | Users wanting a widely recognized platform with expressive chat and flexible pricing who can tolerate slower response speeds |
| Not for | Users needing voice calls, a mobile app, or top-tier image quality | Those who need real-time live calling or a strong free tier to evaluate before paying |
| Operator | Lick Labs Ltd (London) and Nectar AI (Dover, Delaware), per the site's terms; founded by Keccak and Zi, who met at Stanford | EverAI Limited |
| Pricing notes | A free tier now exists, alongside Premium ($9.99/mo), Pro ($19.99/mo), and Ultimate ($34.99/mo) tiers, replacing the flat $10.99/month this review originally tested. Video generation is gated to the Ultimate tier. Browser-based. Accepts cryptocurrency. | 1 Month: $13.99. 3 Months: ~$26.97 (~$8.99/mo). 12 Months: ~$47.88 (~$3.99/mo). Tokens (used for voice, images, and video) are included per tier with add-on packs available. Cryptocurrency payments accepted. |
My take
If you want to try before you pay, Nectar.ai lets you: Candy AI asks for a card first. A free tier is a sampler, not a plan, but it tells you whether the chat suits you before money moves. Candy AI simply does more: nsfw chat and image generation, character customization and voice messages are on its list and not on Nectar.ai's. More features is only better if you will use them.
| The numbers | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rank on this siteOn the combined data gathered for every site | #40 | ▲#5 |
| Google US rank, “ai girlfriend”DataForSEO ranked keywords, September 2026 | – | #11 |
| Tranco rank, all domainsAll-traffic rank among the top million domains | #313,017 | ▲#12,246 |
| Chrome UX tierGoogle Chrome UX Report | Top 500,000 | ▲Top 10,000 |
| Search visits a month, worldwideDataForSEO estimate | 29,223 | ▲592,075 |
| Search visits a month, US | 709 | ▲116,063 |
| Brand searches a month, USGoogle Ads data via DataForSEO | 18,100 | ▲301,000 |
| Domain RatingDomain Rating by Ahrefs, out of 100 | 55 | ▲76 |
| Referring domains | 1,582 | ▲4,683 |
| Backlinks | 13,593 | ▲127,630,165 |
| Domain registered | December 2017 | December 2017 |
| Public record I read | 5 videos, 2 Reddit threads, 1 articles | 17 videos, 8 Reddit threads, 10 articles |
The better value in each row is marked in green. Search visits and brand searches are DataForSEO estimates; Tranco and Chrome UX tiers are ranks, not visit counts.
My take
Start with the row this site ranks on. When someone types "ai girlfriend" into Google in the US, Candy AI is there at #11; Nectar.ai does not appear in the tracked positions at all. That is why Candy AI sits higher here even if it is the smaller site: it is the one the category sends newcomers to. On size, Candy AI is the busier site: 592,075 search visits a month worldwide, more than 20 times what Nectar.ai gets (29,223). These are estimates of visits from Google only, so a site with apps or ads can be bigger than this shows. Brand searches are the loyalty line: 301,000 people a month type Candy AI's name, against 18,100 for Nectar.ai. A name people type on purpose is a site they come back to; a site with lots of visits and few brand searches is living on rankings it could lose. Candy AI's Domain Rating of 76 against 55 means far more sites link to it, which is what keeps rankings stable; the weaker link profile is the one more likely to move, up or down, when Google reshuffles. In plain terms: Candy AI is both the bigger site and the one the category search points to.
| Feature by feature | ||
|---|---|---|
| Chat and roleplay | Users positiveMy test: Agree | Users mixedMy test: Agree |
| Memory | Users mixedMy test: Agree | Users positiveMy test: Agree |
| Image generation | Users positiveMy test: Disagree | Users positiveMy test: Agree |
| Voice and video | Users mixedMy test: Agree | – |
| Characters and customisation | Users positiveMy test: Agree | Users positiveMy test: Agree |
| Free tier | Users negativeMy test: Agree | Users negativeMy test: Agree |
| Price and credits | Users mixedMy test: Partly disagree | – |
| Privacy and billing | Users mixedMy test: Partly disagree | Users mixedMy test: Agree |
| Marketing and trust | Users negativeMy test: Agree | – |
| Safety and legitimacy | Users positiveMy test: Agree | Users positiveMy test: Agree |
| Voice calls | – | Users mixedMy test: Agree |
| Video ('Live Action') | – | Users mixedMy test: Partly disagree |
| Price and tokens | – | Users negativeMy test: Agree |
“Users” is the balance of the YouTube reviews, Reddit threads and articles read for each brand page; “my test” is whether my own month on the site agreed with them.
My take
Users rate them about the same: 4 of 10 features positive for Nectar.ai and 4 of 10 features positive for Candy AI. Where they split, Nectar.ai gets the better word on chat and roleplay. Candy AI gets it on memory. Both get the same complaint on free tier, so that is a category problem rather than a reason to pick one over the other. My own month did not always match the crowd: I disagreed with users on 3 points for Nectar.ai and 1 point for Candy AI, and each disagreement is spelled out on the brand page.
My verdict on each
Nectar.ai
#40 on the ranking
Nectar is the best character builder in its price band, run by a real company, and after a month with it I would still pay the annual plan.
Read my full Nectar.ai analysis →Candy AI
#5 on the ranking
Candy AI is the category's reference point, and after a month with it I understand why.
Read my full Candy AI analysis →More comparisons
Written by Hunter Gray, Founder, Owner & Writer. Every figure is from the two brand pages and refreshes monthly. Nectar.ai and Candy AI are two of the sites in my best AI girlfriend ranking, where the whole category is ordered on the same data.