Why some features cost money

Where the line actually falls

The short version: information is free, and time with a real person is metered. Browsing who is online costs nothing, starting a one-on-one is free to start, and longer live video is what draws down coins. Everything else on this page follows from that single distinction.

Coins are the currency. You top them up in the wallet in advance, and live call time is metered against that balance at a per-minute rate. There is also a free allowance before that metering begins, and the app shows you what you have on screen rather than on a marketing page.

This page prints no numbers, on purpose. There is no pricing page on this site either. Rates, coin packs and any current offer live in the wallet inside the app, they change, and a content page that quotes prices is a page that is wrong within a month. Whatever the in-app screens say is the answer; if this page ever disagrees with them, they are right and this page is stale.

What is free to start, what uses coins

Here is the entire picture in one view: what you are doing, whether it costs anything, and the reason the boundary is drawn where it is. There is no hidden third category underneath it.

Read the middle column downwards and the rule is simple: anything that is only information is free, and anything that occupies another person in real time is metered. Nothing is billed for existing, and nothing is billed in the background.

It also explains why free is always written here as free to start rather than free forever. A live video platform where nothing is ever paid for is a platform that either fills your screen with advertising or does not stay online very long. Being straight about where the line sits is the least annoying version of that trade.

Why metered time instead of a subscription

A monthly subscription is a bet in both directions: the platform bets you will use less than you paid for, and you bet you will use more. It suits people with a routine and quietly punishes everyone else — the person who has one good conversation a month pays for thirty of them.

Metered time inverts that. A quiet week costs nothing at all, you never pay for access you did not use, and there is no renewal date to remember or cancel. The trade-off is that you have to keep half an eye on a balance, which is what the next section is about.

What a coin is actually buying

A subscription buys access — permission to come in. A coin here buys something much smaller and more specific: one minute of one conversation with one person, and a minute that does not happen is a minute that is not spent.

That distinction is why the balance only moves while a live call is running. Time spent browsing, reading profiles, deciding, or closing the tab and thinking about it for a day does not touch it. The meter is attached to the one thing that has a real cost on the other side, and to nothing else.

It also sets a sane expectation about value. The question is never whether coins are cheap in the abstract — it is whether that particular conversation was worth those particular minutes to you. You are the only person who can answer that, which is exactly why the free part comes first: look around, start something, and find out.

How you avoid a surprise

The design detail that matters: the call is limited by your balance, not the other way round. Coins are bought in advance, so there is no invoice at the end, nothing is charged automatically while you talk, and there is no way to finish the night owing anything. Any purchase is one you deliberately make.

While a call is running, the app watches the balance and warns you before it runs out — you get a prompt during the call rather than a silent cut-off. The warning is not subtle, and it arrives while there is still time to decide rather than after the fact. Top up and the call carries on; do nothing and the call ends. That is the entire failure mode: it stops, it does not bill you.

If you want spending to stay predictable, keep a small balance rather than a large one. Your ceiling is whatever you have topped up, and you are the one who sets it.

A call that ends because the balance ran out is not a penalty and nothing is held against you. Top up whenever you feel like it, or do not — browsing and starting a conversation work the same way tomorrow as they did tonight.

Before you pay for anything, check the wallet

Current rates, coin packs, VIP terms and any live offer are shown in the wallet inside the app, and that is the only version worth trusting. There is no separate pricing page to compare it against, deliberately — one price list, in the product, always current. Anything quoted on a content page, including this one, would be a snapshot that ages.

One practical note: the wallet is one of the few areas that needs a real account rather than a guest session, because a payment has to belong to something more durable than a browser tab. If you have been using the site as a guest, that is the exact point at which signing in stops being optional. If you have a billing question the wallet does not answer, the help center is the place to ask rather than guessing from a page like this one.