The three hidden-cost patterns
Coin economies. Platform charges a monthly subscription AND sells coins/tokens/credits that get consumed per-action for premium features. Polybuzz, Candy AI, and some Character.AI features use this shape. Users hit the coin wall mid-conversation and discover the monthly cost is subscription + however many coin packs they burn through. The pattern isn't inherently bad — it's just often not disclosed clearly at signup.
Opaque per-action pricing. Certain actions cost variable amounts, but you don't see the cost before you take the action. You tap "generate video" and only after find out it consumed 50 credits. Some Grok Imagine tiers work this way. Character.AI's message limits are opaque in a related way — you don't know how many messages you can send today until you hit the cap.
Unpublished limits. Free tier and paid tier caps that shift based on server load or aren't documented anywhere. Character.AI has this problem structurally — free tier users report hitting caps around 50-80 messages/day on busy servers, but the platform doesn't publish specific numbers so users can't plan around them.
How to spot hidden costs before subscribing
Five specific things to check on any AI companion product's pricing page before typing a card number:
Look for the word "coins," "tokens," "credits," or "gems." If they appear alongside the subscription price, there's a per-action layer on top of the flat subscription. Read exactly what requires them.
Look for daily/monthly limits published in numbers. Products that say "20 custom photos/month" are being specific. Products that say "premium generation access" without a number are being vague — usually because the number shifts or isn't their preferred framing.
Look for cost-per-action tables. Transparent products publish "voice message = X credits, custom photo = Y credits, video = Z credits." Products that don't are asking you to trust them.
Read the cancellation flow before subscribing. If the cancel path requires contacting support instead of clicking a button in account settings, that's a dark pattern that correlates with billing friction downstream.
Search r/[productname] or "product name refund" on Google. Actual users complaining about specific billing patterns is the highest-signal data available. If the same complaints repeat across dozens of Reddit threads, the pattern is real.
What transparent pricing looks like
A pricing model that isn't hiding anything shares four properties:
Flat monthly cost. One number, no per-action layer. What you pay is what you get.
Published counts for anything limited. If custom photos are capped, the cap is a specific number, not "premium access." If daily messages are capped, the cap is documented, not "moves with server load."
Cost-per-action visible before you tap. For anything that DOES consume a shared resource (credits for cross-tier upgrades), the cost shows in the UI before you take the action, not after.
One-click cancel in account settings. No support ticket required, no multi-step flow designed to discourage cancellation. Screenshot of the cancel confirmation available for record.
These properties are more common on newer companion products that arrived after the coin-economy patterns became well-known frustrations. Older platforms with entrenched token economies are unlikely to switch to flat because the token layer often subsidizes the base subscription price.
What Sloane charges — the whole picture
Free tier: $0/month. 50 messages/day across any persona. Photos included at the standard cadence. Chat with any of the ~80 curated personas.
Plus tier: $9.99/month. Unlimited chat. Unlimited non-custom photos (photos she sends on the natural cadence). 20 custom photos per month (photos you request specifically). Voice notes at the standard cadence. No coins, no tokens, no per-action layer on top.
Premium tier: $19.99/month. Everything in Plus. 70 custom photos per month (not 20). Custom AI girlfriend builder — spend money on training and pre-populating with images at a loss to the platform, per Sloane's operator. Unlimited chat.
Could Sloane lose money on a heavy Plus user who generates the full 20 custom photos every month, uses unlimited voice, chats constantly? Yes. Could Sloane lose money on a Premium user who builds a custom girlfriend and generates all 70 monthly photos? Also yes. The operator would rather users have a good experience than optimize per-action cost — because the alternative (nickel-and-dime pricing) is what makes the category feel scammy.
The trade-off: Sloane is smaller than the giants (Character.AI, Nomi). Curated ~80 personas vs millions of user-created bots. If catalog scale matters most, this is the tradeoff. If predictable spend with no hidden cost matters most, flat is the shape.
Products worth comparing on price transparency
Coin-economy products: Polybuzz (subscription + coin economy), Candy AI (subscription + tokens), some Character.AI premium features. Each is a legitimate operating product — the concern is the coin layer creating unpredictable spend, not that the platforms are scams.
Opaque-per-action products: Grok Imagine at higher tiers doesn't always show credit cost per generation. Some AI image products have similar patterns.
Unpublished-limit products: Character.AI free tier is the primary example — actual message caps shift with server load and aren't documented, so users can't plan around them.
Flat transparent products: Sloane ($9.99 Plus / $19.99 Premium with published photo counts, no coins). Nomi (flat tiers with published limits). Both make the same architectural trade-off: could lose money on heavy users, but the pricing model isn't designed to nickel-and-dime.
The honest question isn't "which is cheapest" — most of these products land in the same $10-20/month range for basic paid tiers. It's "which pricing shape do you actually want to interact with?" Flat is simpler to reason about; coin economies can be cheaper for light users if you never buy coin packs. Pick the shape, not the price point.