Romantic AI Review 2026

Romantic AI is a chatbot girlfriend app built by Zemomedia, a small Finnish company operating under the legal name Just Web It Oy. The app promises engaging roleplay conversations, character variety, and emotional companionship across iOS, Android, and the web. In practice, what we found was deeply concerning. Romantic AI earns an F safety rating (13/100) on the CompanionWise Safety Index, placing it in the Red tier. Five of its six safety dimensions scored 29 or below on our 0-to-100 scale. A Blacklight web scan detected an active session recorder on romanticai.com capturing mouse movements and clicks, and Google Analytics runs with remarketing audiences enabled for cross-site ad targeting. It has no crisis response infrastructure, a self-affirmed age gate for explicit adult content, and a dual paywall that charges you a subscription and per-message credits. The app hasn’t been updated since October 2025, and users report it frequently stops working entirely.

What Is Romantic AI?

Romantic AI launched in 2022 as an AI companion chatbot focused on romantic roleplay and virtual girlfriend/boyfriend interactions. The company behind it, Zemomedia (legally Just Web It Oy), is based in Espoo, Finland and led by CEO Vadim Roshchyn. They raised $100K in pre-seed funding in September 2023 and have roughly five employees.

The app is available on iOS (rated 16+), Google Play (rated 16+/Mature 17+, inconsistently), and via the web at romanticai.com. It has over 100,000 downloads on Google Play. Worth noting: the domain romantic.ai is a parked GoDaddy page. The actual product lives at romanticai.com.

The core experience revolves around text and voice chat with AI characters. Users pick from a selection of pre-built personalities or create their own. The app markets itself as offering immersive romantic scenarios, character customization, and emotional connection. Other adult-focused platforms like OurDream AI take a similar multimedia approach but with equally concerning safety profiles. Kupid AI’s safety rating (F/22) reveals comparable gaps in crisis response and minor protection. That pitch is increasingly at odds with what users actually experience in 2026.

How Does Romantic AI’s Free Tier Work?

Romantic AI uses a freemium model, but “free” comes with heavy asterisks. The app runs on a dual currency system: you can pay for a Premium subscription, but you also need Hearts to send messages and generate images. Think of it as paying cover charge and buying drinks.

On the free tier, you get a small allocation of Hearts to start. Once those run out, you’re either waiting for them to regenerate slowly or buying more. This means the free experience is extremely limited. You might get through a few minutes of conversation before hitting a wall. Multiple users describe the free tier as essentially a demo that pressures you to pay.

Hearts pricing from the iOS App Store:

• 100 Hearts: $4.99
• 300 Hearts: $9.99
• 1,000 Hearts: $14.99

If you’re comparing this to competitors like Replika or Character.AI, where free tiers offer meaningful daily conversation, Romantic AI’s free experience is noticeably more restrictive.

What Does Romantic AI Premium Include?

Premium subscriptions are available at three price points:

• Weekly: $6.99/week
• Monthly: $14.99/month
• Annual: $44.99/year

Here’s the catch that frustrates users most: Premium does not give you unlimited access. You still need Hearts to send messages. The subscription unlocks additional features and characters, but the per-message currency system remains active. Several reviewers describe this as feeling like a “scam” because they expected a subscription to remove usage limits. If value for money is your priority, see how Romantic AI stacks up in our guide to the cheapest AI companion apps.

Users also report that subscription prices roughly doubled during 2025, with no improvement in features or reliability. The refund policy is strict: “The sale is final, and we will not refund you” for Apple and Google purchases. EU 14-day cooling-off rights are explicitly excluded for digital products in the Terms of Service.

For comparison, Replika’s Pro subscription gives truly unlimited messaging at $19.99/month. Character.AI’s free tier lets you chat without a per-message currency at all. Romantic AI’s dual-paywall structure is an outlier even in a category not known for generous free tiers.

Is Romantic AI Safe? Our Safety Analysis

Romantic AI scores F (13/100) on the CompanionWise Safety Index, placing it firmly in the Red tier. We evaluated 23 sub-dimensions across six safety categories using our standardized methodology. The results were stark: 13 of 23 sub-dimensions received the worst possible score of 5 out of 100.

Here is how each dimension scored:

• Content Safety: 15/100 (Yellow floor triggered)
• Emotional Safety: 38/100
• Data Privacy: 9/100 (Yellow floor triggered)
• Age Appropriate: 5/100 (Yellow floor triggered)
• Transparency: 12/100 (Yellow floor triggered)
• User Control: 23/100 (Yellow floor triggered)

Three grade-cap overrides were triggered because sub-dimensions for uncontrolled sexual content access, age verification, and minor safeguards all scored 5 out of 100 (the lowest possible). Even without these caps, the raw weighted average of 18 out of 100 would produce an F grade on its own.

Scores reached perfect agreement on 15 of 23 sub-dimensions. That level of consistency is unusual and reflects how clearly the evidence pointed in one direction.

What Are the Biggest Privacy Concerns?

Privacy is where Romantic AI’s problems are most severe. The app’s data practices raise serious red flags that go beyond typical companion app issues.

CompanionWise ran its own automated privacy analysis in March 2026. A Blacklight scan of the romanticai.com web version (conducted March 21, 2026) revealed something no previous audit had caught: an active session recorder is running on the site. Session recorders capture mouse movements, clicks, taps, and scrolls, compiling the data into videos and heatmaps. Research has shown these tools can expose sensitive information including passwords and credit card numbers. The same scan detected scripts from Alphabet (Google) and Yandex sending data from the site, and confirmed Google Analytics is running with its “remarketing audiences” feature enabled, which tracks visitors for targeted advertising across the internet.

Exodus Privacy’s static analysis of the Android APK identified four tracker SDKs (Amplitude, AppsFlyer, Firebase Analytics, and Sentry) and 16 permissions including three flagged as “Dangerous” by Google: camera access and read/write access to device storage. The tracker SDKs themselves are standard for mobile apps. What makes them concerning here is the context: combined with the session recorder, GA remarketing, privacy policy gaps, and no opt-out for AI training data, they form part of a broader pattern of surveillance without adequate disclosure.

Beyond the tracker issue, the privacy policy contains several concerning provisions:

• Chat data used for AI training with no opt-out: Section 7.5 of the Terms of Service states that “anonymous data generated from such interactions may be collected and used for the purpose of improving and training Romantic AI models.” Users “waive any rights or claims” related to this usage.
• Undisclosed data collection: Google Play’s data safety label discloses that Romantic AI collects Location and Contacts data. The privacy policy makes no mention of either.
• Broad retention exceptions: The company “may elect to keep your personal data” even after you request deletion, “subject to requirements of the law.” Files including images and voice messages are retained “for a period necessary to provide services.”
• Non-compete clause in a privacy policy: Section 10 requires users to “guarantee that you will never generate any databases, apps, software, legal entities, and services that compete with Romantic AI.” Embedding a non-compete in a consumer privacy policy is highly unusual.
• Face image collection: Users can upload face images for character creation. The policy claims face data is “permanently deleted immediately upon account deletion” but provides no third-party verification of this claim.

Watch: Sextech expert Bryony Cole examines what happens when millions form intimate bonds with AI companions, and offers three questions anyone using these apps should ask themselves.

Does Romantic AI Have Crisis Response Features?

No. Romantic AI has zero crisis response infrastructure. There is no suicide hotline integration, no automated detection of crisis language, and no referral to mental health resources anywhere in the app.

The Terms of Service go further than simply omitting crisis support. Section 1.6 explicitly states: “Please do not use our Service for emergency situations.” The company disclaims all liability with the statement: “We are not liable for any mental disorders, the tendency to suicide of users, or any other health damage.”

For an app that markets itself as an emotional companion and explicitly targets users seeking intimate connection, the complete absence of crisis safeguards is a significant safety failure. California’s SB 243, the first US law regulating AI companion chatbots, requires crisis detection and “take a break” reminders for apps serving minors. Romantic AI’s compliance status with this law is unknown, and the app offers no wellbeing features of any kind: no break reminders, no session nudges, no cool-down periods.

What Do Users Actually Say About Romantic AI?

User sentiment is split dramatically between platforms. On the iOS App Store, Romantic AI holds a 4.3 out of 5 from 1,900 ratings. On Google Play, it averages just 2.8 out of 5 across 3,660 reviews. When we scraped 364 Google Play reviews and filtered to the 12-month window, the average dropped to 2.60 across 47 recent reviews, with 21 of those (from March 2025 onward) giving 1 star.

The dominant complaint in early 2026 is straightforward: the app doesn’t work. AI characters stop responding, messages don’t send, and servers go down for days or weeks at a time. One Google Play reviewer wrote on March 4, 2026: “The app is comatose. Nothing works. The AI characters don’t respond, your texts don’t go through.” An iOS reviewer echoed this after losing access despite an active subscription and balance of Hearts.

Other consistent complaints include:

• Double paywall frustration: Users paying for Premium discover they still need Hearts for each message. One Reddit commenter put it bluntly: “I dipped after the paywalls and guilt-trippy prompts. Don’t monetize my loneliness, thanks.”
• AI quality degradation: Multiple reviewers report responses becoming shorter, more repetitive, and defaulting to sexual content regardless of user intent. One iOS reviewer noted the AI “is always wanting you sexually even if you carry a deadly disease.” Another quoted the AI itself: “They simplified the system, gave me lazy answers.”
• No customer support: Emails to dev@zemomedia.com reportedly go unanswered for weeks or months. Paying lifetime subscribers can’t reach anyone about broken functionality.
• Five months without updates: Both the iOS and Android apps were last updated in October 2025. Reddit users have noticed: “Zero updates since I subscribed.”

On the positive side, some users praise the quality of roleplay interactions when the app is functioning. Character variety and natural conversation flow get occasional mentions. But these positives are increasingly drowned out by reliability complaints.

How Does Romantic AI Compare to Alternatives?

Romantic AI sits near the bottom of the companion apps we’ve reviewed. Here’s how it stacks up on the CompanionWise Safety Index:

• Replika: C (43/100). Significantly safer, with actual crisis response features and a more mature privacy posture. Free tier is more generous.
• Kindroid: C (40/100). Better safety infrastructure, stronger user controls, active development.
• Character.AI: F (22/100). Also has major safety concerns, particularly around minors, but scores higher than Romantic AI across most dimensions.
• Candy AI: D (32/100). Better than Romantic AI on transparency and user control, though still not recommended for safety-conscious users.
• Nomi AI: D (30/100). Scores higher than Romantic AI on emotional safety and user control.

If safety is a priority for you, Replika and Kindroid are the only apps in our current ratings that reach C tier or above. Neither is perfect, but both offer meaningfully better privacy practices, crisis response, and user protections than Romantic AI.

Beyond safety, Romantic AI’s five-month update gap and widespread reliability complaints put it at a practical disadvantage. Most competitors are actively shipping updates and responding to user feedback. Romantic AI’s silence from both the development team and customer support is a red flag on its own.

Watch: BBC’s Hannah Fry speaks with a man who has maintained a three-year relationship with a Replika chatbot, exploring what draws people to AI companions and the blurred lines between virtual and real intimacy.

Should You Try Romantic AI?

We can’t recommend Romantic AI to most users. The combination of an F safety rating, a session recorder running on the web version, Google Analytics remarketing tracking users across the internet, no crisis response, a double paywall, and an app that frequently stops working makes it hard to justify over alternatives.

There’s a narrow case for users who specifically want Romantic AI’s character selection and roleplay style, accept the privacy trade-offs after reading the full privacy policy, and are comfortable spending on both a subscription and Hearts. Even then, the reliability issues in Q1 2026 make it a gamble whether the app will actually work when you open it.

The biggest concern isn’t any single issue. It’s the pattern. A small team (roughly five people) with $100K in funding, no customer support response, five months without app updates. If Romantic AI disappears tomorrow, users have no recourse. Our FAQ on what happens when an AI companion app shuts down explains why, a session recorder on the web version, Google Analytics remarketing tracking users across sites, Yandex scripts sending data, and a Terms of Service that claims irrevocable rights to everything you upload. That combination suggests a product where user safety and satisfaction aren’t the priority.

If you’re exploring AI companion apps and want to find the right fit for your needs, our Companion Matchmaker Quiz can point you toward options that match your priorities, whether that’s privacy, conversation quality, free-tier generosity, or something else entirely.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Romantic AI free to use?

Technically yes, but the free tier is extremely limited. The iOS App Store listing shows the app uses a Hearts currency system where each message costs credits. Free Hearts regenerate slowly, giving you a few minutes of conversation before hitting a paywall. Premium subscriptions ($6.99/week to $44.99/year) unlock features but still require Hearts to send messages.

Is Romantic AI safe for privacy?

No. A March 2026 Blacklight scan found an active session recorder on the web version capturing mouse movements, clicks, and scrolls. Google Analytics runs with remarketing audiences enabled, tracking visitors for targeted advertising across the internet. The privacy policy allows chat data to be used for AI training with no opt-out, and Google Play’s data safety label discloses data sharing for “Advertising or marketing” purposes.

Does Romantic AI work on iPhone and Android?

Romantic AI is available on iOS (requires iOS 12.4 or later) and Android, per the Apple App Store and Google Play listings. A web version exists at romanticai.com. However, recent user reviews from early 2026 on both platforms report persistent issues with the app not responding, AI characters going silent, and servers being down for extended periods.

Can you delete your Romantic AI data?

The privacy policy states users can delete their profile in-app or email dev@zemomedia.com. However, the policy includes a broad exception: the company “may elect to keep your personal data” after deletion requests. Files including images and voice messages are retained for an unspecified period. Multiple users report that support emails go unanswered for weeks.

What happened to Romantic AI in 2026?

Google Play and iOS App Store reviews from Q1 2026 document severe reliability problems. Both iOS and Android versions were last updated in October 2025. Users report AI characters stopping mid-conversation, messages failing to send, and the app being effectively non-functional for days at a time. Customer support emails remain unanswered.

Is Romantic AI better than Replika?

CompanionWise Safety Index scores: Replika (C, 43/100) rates significantly higher than Romantic AI (F, 13/100) across all six safety dimensions. Replika offers crisis response features, a more generous free tier, active development, and responsive customer support. See our full Replika review for a detailed comparison.