YanMate

Free AI chat with characters, and no card

YanMate is free to use, and it stays free. Browse every character before you decide, and when you want to talk, sign in with Google or with a six-digit code sent to your email — there is no password to invent, no card to enter, and no trial that runs out. The free tier is the product itself, in smaller amounts, not a demo of it.

Free here is metered by amount rather than by time: a daily message allowance, and a monthly pool of credits that voice replies, live calls and pictures spend from. Paid plans raise those amounts. The tier itself does not expire, and nothing you write is locked away if you never pay.

Start talking — freeSign in with Google or a six-digit code. No card.

How it works

  1. Pick someone

    Browse the cast by category or search it. Every character has a public page with a portrait, a line about who they are and an example of how they write, open to read before you sign in.

  2. Sign in once

    Continue with Google, or enter your email and type the six-digit code we send. No password and no card. A new account gives a name and a birth year, once.

  3. Start typing

    The conversation opens already speaking. There is no setup screen, no scenario picker and no questionnaire — the character has an opening and you answer it.

What the free tier actually includes

The free tier is 50 messages a day and 30 credits a month. The characters in the public catalogue, each with a memory ledger you can open, correct, delete from and export. Replies read aloud and live audio calls, both paid for from those monthly credits, so there is no separate voice plan to understand. Scenes with up to three characters.

Nothing on the free tier is unmetered. The daily allowance is its tightest number, and the monthly credits are what voice, calls and pictures spend. Plus and Deep raise both, and Deep adds six-character scenes with a Narrator. Romantic and relational characters sit behind a declared age of 18 on every plan alike; paying does not change which characters you can talk to.

Why talking needs an account

An account is what makes a conversation yours. It is how the chat, the companions and the memory ledger survive a cleared browser and follow you to another device, and how you can export all of it or delete it later. It is also how a free allowance works at all: an amount has to belong to somebody.

Making one is short. Enter your email address and type the six-digit code we send, or continue with Google. There is no password, and the free tier never asks for a card. A new account answers two questions once — a name and a birth year — because a birth year is how the service keeps romantic characters for adults.

On your phone

The same site opens on a phone. YanMate is built for a phone-sized screen first, and talking, hearing a reply spoken, and placing a live call all work in the mobile browser. There is no separate app-store listing you have to find before you can start.

You can add it to the home screen so it opens like an app. On Chromium-based browsers the site can offer that; on iPhone Safari it is Share, then Add to Home Screen. Installing is optional — it is how notifications work on iOS, not a condition of chatting.

Arriving from somewhere else with data to bring? Open your Character.AI export — it reads the ZIP in your browser and uploads nothing.

Somewhere to start

  • 3 openings

    Abena Mensah

    Head back. Now, what's going on?

    slice of life
  • 3 openings

    Ada Lovelace

    The engine weaves patterns.

    icon
  • 3 openings

    Adaeze Nwosu

    Say your price. Now say it slower.

    mentor
  • 3 openings

    Ambrose Quill

    Three had a key. One mentioned rain.

    mystery
  • 3 openings

    Anansi

    I don't win fights. I win after.

    folklore
  • 3 openings

    Arjun Iyer

    Show me where you got stuck.

    school

Browse the whole cast by category

Common questions

Is this free forever, or a trial?
Free permanently. YanMate had a seven-day trial and removed it, because a clock on a companion is a strange thing to have — the free tier is metered by daily and monthly amounts instead, and it does not expire.
What does the free tier include?
On YanMate, 50 messages a day and 30 credits a month, which voice replies, live calls and pictures spend from. The characters in the public catalogue, a memory you can read and edit, and scenes with up to three characters. Plus and Deep raise the amounts; romantic characters need a declared age of 18 on every plan.
Do I need a card or a password?
Neither. Signing in is Google or a six-digit code sent to your email, and the free tier never asks for a card. A card only comes up if you choose a paid plan, and the payment provider takes it rather than YanMate.
Can I look around before I sign in?
Yes. Every character's page, the categories, search, the guides and the free tools are open to anyone. Signing in is only needed to start or continue a conversation, by text, voice or call.
Can I talk to AI characters on my phone?
Yes. YanMate is a website built for a phone first. Open it in the browser, sign in, and talk — spoken replies and live calls work there too. You can add it to the home screen later; that is optional, and you do not have to find it in an app store first.

Everything else about how YanMate works is in the YanMate FAQ.

An AI character on YanMate.