“When you buy a product it should be 100% yours.” That line, from an owner comment thread we reviewed while researching this category, is the single most common objection we see against AI companion pets. Buyers are not mostly worried about cameras, or battery life, or whether the thing talks. They are worried about buying a $300 robot and then discovering it wants rent.
It is a fair worry, because the answer is different for every brand, and almost nobody lays it out in one place. So we did. Disclosure: CyberPals participates in the Ropet and Energize Lab (Eilik) affiliate programs, and purchases made through those links may earn us a commission. No other brand on this page has any commercial relationship with us, and our affiliate status never changes what we report.
This article is based on official pricing pages, manufacturer statements, and third-party reporting, each dated in the sources note at the end. CyberPals has not conducted hands-on billing tests of these products. Pricing and plans change; treat this as a snapshot taken in early September 2026.
The three business models, in plain terms
Every AI companion pet on the market fits one of three ownership models, and knowing which one you are buying into matters more than any spec sheet:
- Buy once, own it. You pay at checkout and that is the end of the relationship, unless you choose to buy accessories. Ropet, Eilik, and EMO work this way today.
- Buy once, optional care plan. The robot works forever without paying again, but the maker sells an optional service plan for repairs and cleaning. Moflin is the clear example.
- Subscription required. The purchase price is only the entry ticket. Core features, sometimes including the robot’s memory of you, live behind a monthly plan. Lovot, aibo (after year three), and ElliQ are in this camp.
There is also a fourth, uncomfortable category: the plan that changes after you buy. Vector owners learned this the hard way when the original maker went under and the robot’s cloud features later came back behind a yearly fee. We cover that below, because it is the strongest argument for reading the fine print before you fall in love.
Ongoing costs by brand: the table
| Brand | Upfront price | Ongoing cost | Model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ropet | $339 (KAMOMO Pro bundle, was $489) | None. Optional fur sets $25–39 | Buy once |
| Eilik / Eiliko | ~$200 / $59.90 | None found | Buy once |
| Loona (KEYi) | $499.90 | None today — cloud AI free “for now” per KEYi | Buy once* |
| Moflin (Casio) | $398 at launch | Optional “Club Moflin” ~$44/year (repairs, cleaning, fur) | Optional care plan |
| aibo (Sony) | ~$2,900 at US launch | 3-year AI Cloud Plan included, paid renewal after (12-month blocks; guides estimate $10–20/month) | Subscription required |
| Lovot | ~$3,000+ | Mandatory monthly plan, roughly $70–140/month; reviewers note its memories are tied to the plan | Subscription required |
| ElliQ | $249.99 enrollment (caregiver bundle) | ~$59.99/month; sold as a membership | Subscription required |
| Vector (DDL) | $199.99 | ~$99.99/year for voice features (added after the original maker folded) | Changed after purchase |
| Pophie | Waitlist only | Unknown — no business model announced | Unknown |
Note: every row reflects manufacturer pages or dated third-party reporting listed in the sources note; we have not verified any of them hands-on. “None found” means no subscription appears on the official store or in owner communities we track, not a guarantee. Loona gets an asterisk because KEYi has said openly that cloud costs could pressure pricing later.
The buy-once camp: what “no subscription” really looks like
Ropet is the cleanest example in our tracker. The $339 KAMOMO Pro bundle is the whole cost of ownership: no app fee, no points to top up, no cloud plan. The only ongoing spend is optional and cosmetic, fur sets at $25–39 for owners who like changing its look. That is a genuine differentiator in this category, and it is one reason Ropet keeps winning the “quiet desk companion” recommendation in our Ropet review and our Ropet vs Pophie comparison. It ships to the US and Canada from the official store with 30-day returns and a one-year warranty, and code HOYHO takes $8 off.
Eilik and Eiliko follow the same philosophy at a lower price. Eilik runs about $200, the pocket-sized Eiliko $59.90, and neither asks for a recurring payment; the personality lives on the device. If you want a companion that talks without signing up for anything, this is the budget-sane pick, available from the Energize Lab store. We compare the two in our Eilik vs Eiliko breakdown.
Loona deserves a careful sentence rather than a cheer. KEYi’s $499.90 robot currently includes its cloud AI conversation features at no monthly cost, which is remarkable for a product leaning on large language models. But KEYi itself has been direct that cloud costs and tariffs could pressure that arrangement. “Free today” and “free by design” are different promises, and Loona is the former.
EMO and Aibi, from LivingAI, appear to follow the one-time-purchase model as well, with OTA updates included; we have not verified their current bundle pricing, so they stay out of the table until we do.
The subscription camp: what the monthly fee actually buys
Lovot is the most premium companion robot you can buy, and the most subscription-dependent. Beyond a unit price north of $3,000, Lovot requires a monthly service plan that third-party reviewers place at roughly $70–140 depending on tier. The detail that matters most for the F-word buyers fear (forever payments): Japanese reviewers report that Lovot’s accumulated memory of you is tied to the plan. Stop paying and the relationship, in a real sense, resets. If you are considering Lovot, budget it like a gym membership with a fluffy front end, not like a gadget.
aibo hides its subscription better. Sony includes a three-year AI Cloud Plan with every ERS-1000, so for the first three years it feels like a buy-once product. After that, renewals are sold in 12-month blocks, and independent guides put the effective cost around $10–20 a month. The cloud plan is not decorative: it powers aibo’s learning and memory features. Second-hand buyers should check the plan status before paying collector prices.
ElliQ is the most honest about its model, because it does not pretend to be a gadget at all. Intuition Robotics sells ElliQ as a service for older adults: the caregiver bundle launched at $249.99 upfront plus $59.99 a month, and the company’s own store lists it as a monthly membership. For families comparing it against care visits, a subscription framing can actually make sense. Just go in knowing that stopping payment stops ElliQ.
The cautionary tale: Vector, or what happens when the maker disappears
Vector launched as a buy-once robot. Then its maker, Anki, went out of business in 2019, the assets changed hands, and the robot’s cloud-dependent voice features eventually returned under a yearly plan that third-party reviews now put at $99.99. Owners who bought one deal on day one ended up living under another.
We bring this up not to pick on Vector’s current caretakers, who arguably rescued the product, but because it is the sharpest illustration of a rule we apply across our brand database: a cloud-dependent companion’s pricing is only as stable as the company behind it. This is also why Pophie’s silence on pricing matters. A waitlist product with no announced business model is not “subscription-free”; it is subscription-unknown.
CyberPals Take: how to buy with your eyes open
If forever-payments are your dealbreaker, buy from the buy-once camp. Ropet ($339, silent presence, official store, code HOYHO for $8 off) and Eilik (~$200, talks, Energize Lab store) are the two we can point to today with no recurring fees on the official stores. Between them, the choice is the talk-or-quiet axis we mapped in Ropet vs Pophie.
If you are drawn to a subscription product, price three years of it. Lovot at even $70 a month is $2,520 in fees over three years, on top of the unit. ElliQ is about $2,160 over the same window. Neither number is a scandal; both are numbers you should see before checkout, and neither brand puts them in the headline.
If the plan is “unknown,” treat it as a cost, not a zero. Pophie’s model is unannounced. Loona’s free cloud is explicitly “for now.” Our rule: assume an unannounced plan will exist, and be pleasantly surprised if it never does.
Buyer worries, answered
“Is there a points system I’ll be pressured to pay into?” Owner threads in this category complain about point systems feeling forced in some apps. Of the brands in our table, none of the buy-once camp gates core features behind purchasable points on their official stores as of this writing. Cosmetic extras (Ropet fur sets, eye films) are real, but optional and physical.
“Can a robot I own lose features later?” Yes, if its brain is in the cloud. Vector is the precedent. The practical defense is to prefer products whose core personality runs on-device (Eilik, and largely Ropet) or makers with a long service track record (Sony, Casio).
“Do subscriptions ever make sense?” For ElliQ’s use case, arguably yes: it is priced against elder-care services, not against toys. For a desk pet, we have yet to see a monthly fee that buys something a one-time purchase could not.
FAQ
Does Ropet have a subscription fee? No. The $339 bundle is the full cost; the app and its features are free, and the only extras are optional fur sets at $25–39. Code HOYHO takes $8 off at ropetai.com.
Does Lovot have a monthly fee? Yes, and it is mandatory: roughly $70–140 a month depending on plan, per Lovot’s pricing page and independent reviews, with the robot’s memory tied to an active plan.
Does aibo require a subscription? Every new aibo includes three years of Sony’s AI Cloud Plan. After that you pay for renewals in 12-month blocks, and the plan powers aibo’s core learning features.
Which talking AI companion has no subscription? Eilik, at about $200, talks and reacts with no recurring fee found on the official store. Loona’s conversation features are also currently free, though KEYi has flagged that could change.
What should I check before buying any AI pet? Three lines in the FAQ or terms: whether core features need a plan, what happens to memories or progress if you stop paying, and whether the features run on-device or in the cloud. Our 2026 buyer’s guide applies this checklist across the field.
What we’re testing next
Our hands-on queue now includes a billing-focused pass: setting up each app we can buy, documenting every purchase prompt it shows in the first 30 days, and publishing the screenshots. If you own any companion in our table and have hit a paywall we did not list, our comment section is open; owner reports set our testing order. You can also see these companions in motion on our video wall.
Sources: ropetai.com product pages (verified 2026-09-01); store.energizelab.com (2026); lovot.life/pricing and mia-cat.com Lovot review (retrieved 2026-09-04); The Verge on Moflin’s Club Moflin (2024-10, launch pricing) and on ElliQ’s caregiver plan (2025-01); us.aibo.com AI Cloud Plan page and Sony renewal FAQ (retrieved 2026-09-04); KEYi statements on Loona cloud pricing (2026); third-party Vector pricing reviews (retrieved 2026-09-04). All claims reflect these sources unless noted; CyberPals has not verified billing hands-on.