Linky AI review: is Linky AI worth paying for?

Linky AI is worth paying for if you are on Android and you want anime-style characters with voice and a huge roster to collect. It is a harder sell for everyone else: its US App Store listing is gone, Linky publishes no price for its subscription or its coins, the browser version charges a coin per message and cannot create characters, and refunds are Apple's or Google's problem rather than Linky's. We build a competing product, so weigh that. Every figure and quote below was checked first-hand on 15 September 2026 against Linky's own terms, privacy policy, website code and store listing.

Is Linky AI still on the App Store?

Not in the US. The Linky AI App Store page returns a 404, and Apple's own lookup service returns zero results for the app's ID. Linky's website, linke.ai, now shows one download button, and it says "Download for Android". The South China Morning Post reported the app disappearing from the US App Store in December 2024; what we can say for certain is that it is not there today.

This matters for a review more than it sounds. The pages currently ranking for "Linky AI review" still quote a 4.4-star App Store rating and link iPhone owners to a listing that no longer exists. If you are on an iPhone, the full app is not available to you through Apple, and what is left is the browser version, which we cover below.

On Android the picture is healthy. "Linky AI: Chat, Play, Connect" shows 10M+ downloads on Google Play and was updated on 8 September 2026, so this is a maintained product, not an abandoned one.

How much does Linky AI cost?

Linky does not say. There is no price on linke.ai, none in its terms of service, and none on its Google Play listing, which shows only a range: "$0.49 - $269.99 per item". The "$17 a month or $109 a year" figure that appears in several reviews has no vendor source we could find, so treat any specific number you read as unconfirmed until you see it on the purchase screen inside the app.

What Linky does publish is what the subscription buys. Its terms describe Pro as giving you "the ability to collect 30 free coins daily, access to more daily card draws, priority in AI avatar creation queues, selection from an expanded range of avatar pictures, the option to create a substantial number of characters, accelerated AI response times for efficient chatting, and an exclusive badge". It renews on "successive monthly, quarterly or annually periods". There is no weekly option.

On top of that sits a currency. The terms mention "coins (e.g., purple coins, gold coins)", and virtual gifts you can send to other users. Here is how the pieces fit together:

What you pay for	What Linky's own sources say
Pro subscription	Monthly, quarterly or yearly. No published price.
Coins	Spent on card draws, gifts and extras. Pro adds 30 a day. No published pack prices.
Messages in the browser	"One message consumes one, recharge to continue chatting."
Messages in the Android app	The web chat prompts you to "Download the Linky app for free chat".
Largest single purchase	Up to $269.99 per item, per Google Play's price range.

A two-currency model is not unusual in this category and is not a scam. It does mean the honest answer to "how much does Linky AI cost" is the subscription plus however many draws and gifts you end up wanting, and the app is designed to make one more draw feel reasonable. If a predictable monthly bill is part of what you are shopping for, that is the thing to weigh first.

What Linky AI does well

The art is the reason people install it. Linky's characters come in 2D, animated Live2D, pixel and 3D styles, with voice, and the roster is very large, heavily weighted toward anime personas. Card draws turn browsing that roster into a collecting game, which some people genuinely enjoy for its own sake.

It is also popular with the people who stay. Of 136,812 ratings on Google Play, 83,914 are five stars. For a free-to-start app that is a real signal that the core loop works for a large audience.

Where Linky AI falls short

The same rating breakdown has a second story in it: 26,522 one-star ratings, about 19% of the total, against a 3.9 average. That is an unusually polarized distribution. Most people love it and a sizable minority really do not.

The complaints cluster around three things. The first is memory. Independent reviewers testing through 2026 report characters losing the thread after about a dozen exchanges, and Linky publishes no memory specification to check that against. For a character you graze on, that barely matters. For a companion you want to know you next month, it is the whole question, and it is why we wrote about how companion memory actually works.

The second is ads. Google Play lists the app as "Contains ads", and a paid tier is how you quiet them. The third is the web version. Linky's own post comparing web and app says the browser is "designed primarily for exploration rather than personalization", with "no options for creating or customizing" a character. So the one route left for iPhone users is also the reduced one, and it meters every message.

Refunds and cancellation

Linky does not process refunds itself. Its terms say you may cancel "within the App Store or Google Play, as applicable, at leaset 24 hours prior to the expiration of the current period" (the typo is in the original), that "if you want to obtain a refund in connection with any subscription, you must contact Apple or Google directly", and that Linky "will have no liability to you whatsoever for any refunds in connection with subscriptions, except when required by the applicable law."

In practice: cancel in Google Play a day before renewal, not on the day, and if a charge needs reversing, the request goes to Google. Coins, per Linky's terms, have "no monetary or 'real world' value", so unspent coins do not come back when you leave.

What "never shared" means in the privacy policy

Linky's Google Play description says "All conversations are confidential, encrypted, and never shared." Its privacy policy, last updated December 29, 2025, is more specific. It allows "sharing your behavioral data and profiling data with online advertising service providers", naming Firebase Analytics and AppsFlyer. It also says "Linky and Linky Real form a unified Platform", synchronizing account data, profile information and "User Content (including chat messages)" with Linky Real, a separate voice-party social app.

Those statements can coexist if "never shared" is read as "never published". The policy is the document that binds the company, so read it before you type anything personal. We go through the rest of it, including age rules that differ by device, in is Linky AI safe.

Who should pay for Linky AI, and who should not

Pay for it if you are on Android, the art style is what draws you, you enjoy collecting characters more than keeping one, and a bill that varies with how many draws you make does not bother you. On those terms Linky is a good product and a subscription removes the most irritating part of it.

Skip it if you are on an iPhone and want the full experience, if you want to read a price before committing, or if what you are after is one companion who remembers your week. And if what you were really hoping for is not a fictional character at all but an AI that answers the way a real person would, built from things that person actually wrote, that is a different kind of tool: a mind clone trained on your own documents does it, and no roleplay app will.

The verdict

Linky AI is a well-made, very popular character app for Android users who love anime art, and a paid tier makes it better. The review sites have not caught up with what changed: no US App Store listing, no published price, a metered browser version, and refunds that go through Google. None of that makes it a bad app. All of it is worth knowing before you pay.

If you want the opposite trade, one companion you design yourself, who remembers you, in any browser including Safari on an iPhone, on a price you can read before signing up, that is what we built. Our pricing page lists every plan without an account, and the Linky AI alternative comparison puts Linky next to Character.AI, Talkie, PolyBuzz and Nomi on price, platform and memory.

Frequently asked questions

Is Linky AI worth it?

For Android users who want anime characters with voice and enjoy collecting them, yes. For iPhone users, and for anyone who wants a published price or a companion with long memory, probably not. Linky's US App Store listing is gone, it publishes no price for Pro or coins, and refunds go through Google or Apple rather than Linky.

Is Linky AI available on iPhone?

Not as a store app in the US. Its App Store page returned a 404 on 15 September 2026 and Apple's lookup service returned no result. iPhone owners can use the browser chat at linke.ai, which charges one coin per message and does not let you create or customize a character.

Does Linky AI have ads?

Yes. Its Google Play listing is marked "Contains ads", and removing them is one of the reasons people subscribe. Linky's terms describe Pro as adding 30 free coins a day, more card draws, faster responses and the ability to create more characters.

Who owns Linky AI?

Skywork AI Pte. Ltd., a Singapore company at 2 Science Park Drive, according to its terms of service and its Google Play developer listing. Its terms are governed by Singapore law, with disputes sent to arbitration in Singapore.