Why I raised Amili's prices from $7.97 to $14/$29 — and locked founders in forever
Amili launched at a single price: $7.97/month. Today there are three: Free, Plus ($14), Pro ($29). If you're a founding member, you pay $7.97 forever. Here's the whole story, including the parts that don't look great.
The original price was a panic-pick
When Amili first went live, I had no idea what a personal AI companion should cost. $20/mo felt greedy for a product nobody had heard of. $5/mo felt like I was apologizing. I split the difference, added an unlucky cent for personality, and shipped $7.97.
It sounded honest. It was cheap enough to impulse-buy. It did fine for a week.
Then I started running the math.
The math didn't work
Amili talks to you through Claude Sonnet, Anthropic's frontier model. A power user sends 200+ messages a day. Each Sonnet response costs me a few cents to generate. A subscriber who chats daily costs me ~$10/month in API spend alone, before a single line of infrastructure.
At $7.97/mo I was running a negative-margin business on anyone who actually used the product. The people I most wanted — engaged daily users — were the ones costing me the most.
That's not a pricing strategy. That's a bankruptcy plan with an optimistic chart.
So I raised. Three tiers, honestly
Here's what shipped:
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Built for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 30 msgs/day, full memory, 80+ languages |
| Plus | $14 | $108 (save 35%) | Daily chatters — 200 msgs/day, 3 personas |
| Pro | $29 | $228 (save 35%) | Power users — unlimited, integrations, voice |
Free isn't a demo. 30 messages a day, full memory, multilingual — you can genuinely use Amili daily and never pay a cent. The cost of one free user is covered by a fraction of a paid Plus user, so the unit economics support "free that's actually useful."
Plus is the anchor — where "daily companion" stops feeling gated. Pro is the power-user tier with the integrations and voice notes that cost more to run.
Founding members pay $7.97 forever
Every person who signed up at $7.97/mo is locked in at $7.97, for life. Not for twelve months. Not "until we decide otherwise." For as long as they keep the subscription running.
Their features bump to the Plus tier's equivalent — they don't lose anything by staying at the old price. If they ever cancel, the founding rate is gone. That's the only catch.
The deal. Founding member price is only gone if you actively cancel. Pause, change cards, change emails — all fine. Keep the subscription alive, keep the rate. There's a dedicated page for founders at amili.ai/grandfather.
Why? Because those people signed up when nobody knew what Amili was. They made a bet on a weird little $7.97 AI companion from a solo builder in Amsterdam. Punishing them for being early would teach future early adopters not to trust me. I'd rather eat margin on every founding subscription forever than violate that.
What changes for you
If you've never paid: nothing. Free tier is free forever.
If you're already a founding member at $7.97: nothing, unless you want to upgrade to Pro — then Pro-specific billing applies and you lose the founding lock on the Plus-equivalent features. For most people, the honest advice is don't upgrade. Your $7.97 is good forever.
If you're signing up today: $14/mo for Plus, $29 for Pro, with a real 7-day free trial on both. Card required at checkout, no charge for 7 days. Cancel in one click during the trial and pay zero.
What I learned
- Pricing "honesty" isn't the same as pricing smart. A price that bankrupts you isn't honest — it's just unreliable.
- Raising prices is not a moral failure. Running the business into the ground while pretending to be generous would be.
- Free tiers have to be genuinely useful or the funnel is a bait-and-switch.
- The people who bet on you early are the people you owe the most to. Treat them that way, always.
If you want to try Amili, it's free, no card, at amili.ai/chat. If you want to see the current pricing laid out fully, amili.ai/pricing.
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