Open data · Last updated 2026-10-14
What Character.AI users complain about in 2026
Short answer
Character.AI's App Store reviewers complain most about the age check (39% of complaints) and ads (37%). In 63 Reddit threads, about half of complaints (49%) say bot quality got worse, and the age check comes next at about 15%. Sources: 500 reviews and 7,795 Reddit posts and comments.
App Store reviews
The 500 newest US App Store reviews of Character.AI, dated 2026-09-25 to 2026-10-09. 479 of them complain about the app; 332 of those complaints are 1- or 2-star reviews. Stars: 1★ 253, 2★ 81, 3★ 78, 4★ 33, 5★ 55. One review can raise several themes, so shares add up to more than 100%.
- Age check39.0%
- Ads36.7%
- Paying and subscriptions20.5%
- Bugs and outages18.2%
- New features and changes17.3%
- Limits16.3%
- Bot quality10.0%
- Content filter6.9%
- Other4.4%
- Lost chats or bots2.9%
- Safety and moderation1.9%
| Theme | Complaints | Share of complaints |
|---|---|---|
| Age check | 187 | 39.0% |
| Ads | 176 | 36.7% |
| Paying and subscriptions | 98 | 20.5% |
| Bugs and outages | 87 | 18.2% |
| New features and changes | 83 | 17.3% |
| Limits | 78 | 16.3% |
| Bot quality | 48 | 10.0% |
| Content filter | 33 | 6.9% |
| Other | 21 | 4.4% |
| Lost chats or bots | 14 | 2.9% |
| Safety and moderation | 9 | 1.9% |
Reddit threads
Every comment in 63 threads (r/CharacterAI 29, r/CharacterAIrunaways 24, r/CharacterAI_No_Filter 7, r/CharacterAIrevolution 3), dated 2025-10-13 to 2026-10-10. Two independent model passes found between 1,632 and 1,977 complaints. The "both passes" column counts only what both agreed on — read it as the floor. Shares are of the 1,632 complaints both passes agree on.
- Bot quality49.1%
- Age check15.1%
- Content filter6.5%
- Other6.4%
- New features and changes6.2%
- Paying and subscriptions4.9%
- Limits4.2%
- Safety and moderation3.7%
- Ads3.6%
- Lost chats or bots1.9%
- Bugs and outages1.8%
| Theme | Both passes (floor) | Range | Share (both) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bot quality | 802 | 893–1,048 | 49.1% |
| Age check | 247 | 281–332 | 15.1% |
| Content filter | 106 | 139–157 | 6.5% |
| Other | 105 | 205–243 | 6.4% |
| New features and changes | 101 | 142–187 | 6.2% |
| Paying and subscriptions | 80 | 89–118 | 4.9% |
| Limits | 69 | 88–95 | 4.2% |
| Safety and moderation | 60 | 118–137 | 3.7% |
| Ads | 58 | 61–71 | 3.6% |
| Lost chats or bots | 31 | 37–49 | 1.9% |
| Bugs and outages | 30 | 34–53 | 1.8% |
Range is the lower and higher of the two passes. Safety and moderation is the softest theme: the passes agree on only 60 of up to 137.
Reddit complaints by month
By the date of each post or comment. These follow which threads were picked, so they are not a trend line. October 2025 starts on 2025-10-13; October 2026 ends on 2026-10-10.
| Month | Both passes | Second pass | First pass |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-10 | 202 | 214 | 231 |
| 2025-11 | 134 | 181 | 176 |
| 2025-12 | 23 | 28 | 27 |
| 2026-01 | 73 | 82 | 87 |
| 2026-02 | 93 | 107 | 103 |
| 2026-03 | 204 | 215 | 238 |
| 2026-04 | 118 | 129 | 137 |
| 2026-05 | 323 | 345 | 401 |
| 2026-06 | 185 | 215 | 223 |
| 2026-07 | 109 | 117 | 137 |
| 2026-08 | 98 | 101 | 111 |
| 2026-09 | 23 | 24 | 35 |
| 2026-10 | 47 | 54 | 71 |
Method
- App Store: Apple's public review feed for Character.AI, United States, the 500 newest reviews (the feed's cap), dated 2026-09-25 to 2026-10-09.
- Reddit: 63 threads with every comment, read from a public Reddit archive. 8,978 comments were fetched; after deleted, removed and AutoModerator comments were dropped, 7,795 posts and comments were labelled.
- What counts as a complaint: criticism of Character.AI itself — the app, its bots, rules, prices or company — not of other apps or other users. Each complaint is tagged with every theme it touches, from one closed list of 11 themes used for both sources.
- Promotion removed: 762 Reddit items that promote another app were taken out before counting.
- Two passes: gpt-5-mini labelled every Reddit item twice, with two separately written prompts; the second pass never saw the first pass's labels. The passes agree on complaint or not for 7,270 of 7,795 items (93%). 90 disagreements were read one by one to see which pass was right.
Limitations
- 39 of the 63 Reddit threads were picked by score from a sample of each subreddit's year, so they are not the true top threads of the year.
- Reddit is not a census. Every Reddit figure is a share of complaints in this sample, not of Character.AI users. Counts are comments, not people; one person can comment many times, and a few very large threads carry much of the bot-quality count.
- The App Store window is two weeks in one country, so it is not comparable with a year of Reddit threads.
- Every label was assigned by a model. Spot checks and the second pass catch many errors, not all.
Download and cite
Aggregate counts only — no review or comment text. License: CC BY 4.0. Reuse freely with credit and a link.
How to cite
Desire AI (2026). Character.AI complaints 2026: App Store and Reddit data. Last updated 2026-10-14. https://desireai.app/data/character-ai-complaints-2026
Last updated 2026-10-14.
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