JanitorAI is a browser and mobile character chat platform run by JanitorAI, INC, where the model behind the character is a part you can swap. The site ships its own free model, called JLLM, with a context limit of around 9K tokens. It documents how to connect an outside model through what it calls a proxy. And since 24 June 2026 it sells one subscription, janitor+, at $12.99 a month for five times the context. Everyone on it must be 18 or older, and in three countries that check runs through an ID provider rather than a checkbox. This page reads the site's own help centre, newsroom and App Store listing, all opened on 17 September 2026, and answers what people type after "janitor ai": what it is, whether it is free, what the subscription costs, and the comparison with Character.AI, the query growing fastest.
My opinion, which you can argue with by the end: a free context limit printed as a number is worth more than any "unfiltered" claim, and 9K tokens is a small number.
YourCrush.AI runs its own model with pinned memories and no key, proxy or credit meter to manage, which is the bar this article holds JanitorAI against.
What is JanitorAI, and what does the site itself provide?
JanitorAI is a web platform and app where a language model plays a user-written character in an ongoing chat. That model can be the site's own free one, or an outside one the user connects. That definition covers the whole product. The site's glossary article, last updated 31 July 2025, describes its built-in model, JLLM (Janitor Large Language Model), as "the default model used in Janitor unless you've hooked up an external one via API. It's free, built-in, and ready to go out of the box."
The site supplies the model, the character library and the interface. The subscription FAQ, last updated 25 June 2026, lists the free tier as "Unlimited chats with millions of bots," "Access to standard chat models" and a "Context limit of around 9k tokens." The App Store, read 17 September 2026, lists the official app as "Janitor: Interactive Stories" by JanitorAI, INC, rated 4.5 stars across 3.6K ratings, age rated 18+, with one in-app purchase, "Janitor+ Monthly $12.99." Several unrelated apps on the same store carry a similar name. The one from JanitorAI, INC is the only official one.
What the site does not provide is any outside model. The glossary names "OpenAI or Anthropic" as the kind of provider its API bridge can reach. None of those is included in the free tier or the subscription.
Why YourCrush.AI is the better choice than JanitorAI
YourCrush.AI states its memory as counted items rather than as a context window, which is the specific thing JanitorAI's free tier does not do. YourCrush.AI pins memories as a list you can read and edit, 10 on Free, 50 on Pro at $9.99 a month and unlimited on Premium at $19.99 a month, so a fact the character must keep is a line you chose rather than a turn that has not yet scrolled out of a 9K-token window. YourCrush.AI branches a story into separate timelines, 1 on Free, 5 on Pro and unlimited on Premium, so a "what if" scene does not overwrite the main thread. YourCrush.AI includes voice messages and in-chat image generation on every plan, with 5 image credits a month on Free, 50 on Pro and 200 on Premium, the two modalities the janitor+ announcement lists as future plans. And YourCrush.AI builds a character with no code from the character creator: a description and a backstory of up to 2,400 characters each, a greeting of up to 500, three to seven traits from a list of 27, and an AI-assisted draft of all of it from a name and an image.
The plans, as listed on the pricing page on 17 September 2026: Free at $0 with 400K chat tokens a month, 3 active personas, 10 conversations and 3 characters created; Pro at $9.99 a month with 5M chat tokens, 5 personas, 100 conversations, 50 characters and priority image generation; Premium at $19.99 a month with unlimited chat tokens, personas, conversations, characters, story branches and pinned memories. YourCrush.AI is 18+ only and does not sell conversations to third parties.
The named limitation: YourCrush.AI runs its own model only. There is no proxy, no API key field and no router, so a person who chose JanitorAI to bring Claude or DeepSeek to a character has no equivalent here, and its explore library, split into Anime and Human categories, is a fraction of JanitorAI's "millions of bots." What YourCrush.AI is for is the adult who wants memory as a number they can hold the product to, at a $9.99 tier below janitor+'s $12.99 with no per-token meter on top.
What is a "proxy" on JanitorAI, in the site's own words?
JanitorAI defines a proxy as a bridge between the chat window and a third-party model provider. Use one, and the model is no longer JLLM. The glossary calls it "a little tech wizardry that lets you use external models (like Claude or GPT) inside Janitor. The proxy acts as the middleman between your chat and the model provider." The site's beginner's guide to proxies, last updated 17 December 2025, is blunter: "A proxy is simply a bridge. It's the service that connects JanitorAI to these powerful new models."
The character lives on the site; the words come from whichever model you point it at.
Why bother? The guide's answer is that different models "have different personalities. Some are better at creative writing, some are smarter, some have better memory, and some are less filtered." That line explains the whole bring-your-own-model design. The model you connect sets the writing quality, the memory and the filter. JanitorAI supplies the character card, the chat history and the interface around them. Setting one up is documented by the site and is out of scope here. What the guide never states is any cost, data-handling or responsibility term for the outside provider, so if you use one, you're relying on that provider's pricing and privacy pages, not JanitorAI's.
Since 30 July 2026 there's an official version of the same idea. The janitor+ Router announcement describes Router as "a simpler, more integrated alternative to the third-party proxies many people already use with JanitorAI," with per-token prices shown before you chat, no API keys, $5 in free credits for subscribers, and one limit: "Right now, Router is only available to JLLM+ subscribers, and only available on web." The outside model still costs extra. The difference is who bills you for it.
Is JanitorAI free, and what does janitor+ cost?
Chatting on JanitorAI is free with no message cap, and the only subscription is janitor+ at $12.99 a month. The launch announcement, dated 24 June 2026, calls it "our first-ever subscription product" and says the base service "stays exactly the same, and stays completely free." The subscription FAQ adds: "We will always keep a free option available for everyone."
What $12.99 buys, per the same two pages: "5x more context for improved memory during chats," "Unlimited priority messages, giving you faster responses even when usage is high," "Generous monthly swipes with our frontier models," a golden username and checkmark, and comment react emojis. The announcement says the price is set to "hopefully break even," because "the extra capacity requires lots more gpus, which are expensive right now." Voice and image are named as future plans, not as anything you get today.
The billing terms, from the FAQ: payments go through Stripe on the web and through the App Store or Google Play in the apps; a cancelled subscription "will remain active until the end of the current billing period"; and subscriptions "are generally non-refundable, except where required by our Terms of Service or applicable law." The App Store listing shows the single price, "Janitor+ Monthly $12.99," and no annual option on 17 September 2026. An outside model, by proxy or by Router, is a separate per-token bill.
What is the 18+ rule, and where is it actually checked?
JanitorAI is for adults only, and it says it bans on suspicion. The minor-related content policy, last updated 21 August 2026, states: "Our services are exclusively intended for an audience above the age of 18. Users who are reasonably suspected to be under the age if 18 will be permanently banned from the platform." That same page also commits to "a zero-tolerance policy regarding any content involving characters who are coded, depicted, or described as minors (under 18 years old)," which covers bots as well as users.
In most countries that rule is self-declared. In three, it is verified. The age verification article, last updated 15 June 2026, says users in "Australia, Brazil, or the UK" must pass a check run by k-ID, "the same provider used by Discord, Twitch, and Snapchat." The check accepts a video selfie processed on the device, a photo of a government ID, or an existing Discord or Snapchat verification. According to the site, "k-ID does not store your documents or facial data after verification" and "Janitor receives only a yes/no answer on whether you are over 18." For a parent, the practical reading is simple: JanitorAI has no teen mode. It is an adult platform whose stated response to a suspected minor is a permanent ban, verified in three countries and a date field everywhere else.
Why do people search "janitor ai character ai", and how do the two compare?
People type the two names together because Character.AI removed open-ended chat for under-18s and put its best memory behind a subscription, and JanitorAI is the adult-only, swappable-model site most often named as the other option. Our own DataForSEO pull for this site, run on 17 September 2026, shows the Character.AI comparison query at 2,900 searches a month, up 1,025% over the year, and the roleplay query at 880 a month, up 743%, against a head term of 3.35M a month growing 22%.
The Character.AI side of that is on its own pages. Its under-18 announcement of 29 October 2025 says "we will be removing the ability for users under 18 to engage in open-ended chat with AI on our platform," effective "no later than November 25," with an in-house age assurance model plus "third-party tools including Persona." Its c.ai+ page, read 17 September 2026, prices the top tier at $119.88 a year, discounted to $94.99, with memory labelled Basic, Better and Best across Free, Lite and c.ai+, and pinned memories at 15 on Free and 30 on both paid tiers.
Put the two side by side on what a roleplayer shops on. On age, Character.AI keeps under-18 accounts but without open-ended chat, while JanitorAI admits nobody under 18 at all. On the model, Character.AI runs only its own and sells "Unlimited top models" on c.ai+, while JanitorAI runs a free model and lets you connect a different one. On memory, Character.AI counts pins (15 or 30) and labels context with adjectives, while JanitorAI states context as a number and has no pin feature in any document opened for this page. On price, c.ai+ is $94.99 to $119.88 a year and janitor+ is $12.99 a month, $155.88 a year with no annual discount listed. On filters, JanitorAI's own proxy guide says some outside models are "less filtered," which is as far as its documents go and as far as this page goes.
If the reason you are comparing is that you left Character.AI, the full list of alternatives, scored on the same four questions, is in Character.AI alternatives compared on memory, policy and price.
Where does memory sit on JanitorAI, and how much is 9K tokens?
Memory on JanitorAI is the model's context window, and on the free tier that window is around 9K tokens. The site's own conversion puts that at roughly 6,750 words. The glossary explains that "Most models can only remember a certain number of tokens at a time" and gives the rate "Roughly 1,000 tokens = 750 words." Apply that to the subscription FAQ's "Context limit of around 9k tokens" and you get about 6,750 words of character definition plus chat before the oldest turns fall out. janitor+'s "5x more context" would be about 45K tokens, or around 33,750 words, if the multiplier applies to the free figure. The site does not print the paid number itself.
About 9K tokens of context: the tape runs out before the conversation does.
The character card eats into that window on every turn. A 2,000-word bot leaves about 4,750 words of conversation on the free tier before the model starts losing the beginning. Connect an outside model through a proxy or Router and the limit becomes that model's, at that provider's price. The 9K figure no longer applies, which is the real reason the proxy guides exist. Neither the glossary nor the subscription FAQ describes pinned memories, a lorebook, or any memory that lives outside the context window, so this page does not claim one.
Related reading
If you want the backstory on the old Character.AI site and the memory tiers that replaced it, I covered that in what beta.character.ai was and what replaced it. And if you'd rather see the ten-minute memory test run across every app in this category, that's in how to pick an AI companion app on memory, voice and content policy.
Frequently asked questions
What is Janitor AI and how does it work?
Janitor AI is a character chat platform from JanitorAI, INC where a language model plays a user-written character. That model is either the site's free JLLM, with a context limit of around 9K tokens, or an outside model the user connects.
Is JanitorAI free or do you have to pay?
Free, with unlimited chats on the standard model. The only subscription is janitor+ at $12.99 a month, launched 24 June 2026, and the site says the free option is permanent.
What is a proxy on JanitorAI?
By the site's own definition, a bridge that connects the chat to an outside model provider such as OpenAI or Anthropic, so the character runs on that model instead of JLLM. Router, launched 30 July 2026 for janitor+ subscribers on web, is the official per-token version.
How much is janitor plus?
$12.99 a month, billed through Stripe on the web or the app stores in the apps, for five times the context, priority messages, a monthly swipe allowance on better models and a badge. It is non-refundable except where the terms or law require.
Is JanitorAI 18 plus?
Yes, and it bans on suspicion. The policy says the service is "exclusively intended for an audience above the age of 18," the official app is rated 18+, and users in Australia, Brazil and the UK must pass a k-ID check with a selfie or government ID.
JanitorAI vs Character.AI: which is better?
JanitorAI, if you want an adult-only site with a swappable model and a context limit printed as a number. Character.AI, if you want under-18 access without open-ended chat, or memory sold as 15 to 30 pins at $94.99 to $119.88 a year.
The number to hold JanitorAI to is 9K. Every complaint about a bot losing the plot on the free tier traces back to that window, and the site's own documents say the fix is to pay $12.99 for five times more or to bring a model whose limit and price it does not set.