I Paid for Two AI Girlfriend Apps With Crypto. Here's What Happened.
Two $12.99 plans, two USDT payments, and two scares. I still prefer my card.
Researched & written by Ranji Mercado · The Coach, aigirlfriend.coach
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Ranji Mercado · content writer & data researcher
I run every page on this site the same way: experience first, write second. I subscribe with my own money, live in each app, log the dates, prices and screenshots, and only then write. Nothing here is a rewrite of someone else's article or a press kit.
I pay for every app I review with my own money, and almost every time, I pay with my credit card. Type the numbers, hit subscribe, done.
Two apps didn't let me do that. NaughtyChats and EroLove both cost $12.99 a month, and both sent me to crypto. So I paid both of them in USDT, through the same payment processor, NOWPayments.
Here's the thing. I'm not new to crypto. I've traded Solana, Ethereum, Sui and a bunch of other coins. Sending USDT wasn't scary for me. What bothered me wasn't figuring out how to pay. It was the extra fees, the error messages, and the waiting, all for a subscription that costs less than lunch.
So is paying with crypto actually worth it for a $12.99 AI girlfriend plan? Let me tell you what happened, and you can decide.
Why I picked crypto in the first place
It wasn't because I think crypto is better. It was the easier door of the ones I was given.
NaughtyChats gives you two ways to pay: crypto, or a card payment they arrange with you on Discord. I wasn't suspicious of the Discord route. I know some smaller apps handle payments outside the app, and AmorLink AI, for example, has you pay in Telegram Stars. But I'm not a fan of Discord. I had an account, but opening it, reconnecting and messaging someone to set up a payment felt like a hassle. Sending crypto felt quicker.
EroLove didn't give me a choice at all. Crypto was the only way to pay.
I didn't choose crypto because it was better. I chose it because it was the shortest way in.
NaughtyChats: I sent the exact amount, and it said "partially paid"
On October 20, I picked USDT on the Solana network. The NOWPayments checkout asked me to send exactly 13.221172 USDT for the $12.99 plan. That's what I sent.
Then the page told me the payment was only partially received.
Yeah, I was worried about losing my money. And the page didn't help: it didn't say how much was missing, and it didn't give me a way to pay the difference. It just said to contact the seller. I would have happily paid whatever was short. I just couldn't.
Looking back, I never checked what actually landed on their end, so maybe a fee came off the top somewhere along the way. I honestly still don't know. Either way, it should have been seamless. One payment, done.
So I did the one thing I knew I could do. I emailed support right away, at 6:39 PM. They replied at 6:49 PM, ten minutes later. At 9:27 PM my premium was on. Two hours and 48 minutes, and I didn't have to pay again.
Credit where it's due: support was quick and honest. But a new subscriber shouldn't need support just to subscribe. The full timeline is in my NaughtyChats review.
EroLove: my $12.99 month cost 19.48 USDT
On October 30, I paid EroLove. This time I picked USDT on Ethereum, the ERC20 network. The checkout showed me the exact amount to send, 14.483383 USDT, plus an address and a QR code.
That's already about 1.49 USDT more than the plan price. Then came the network fee. I sent from an exchange account, and it took its fee in USDT, about 5 USDT on top. If you send from your own wallet instead, you'd pay the gas in ETH, so you'd need ETH sitting in there too. Either way, ERC20 isn't cheap.
| EroLove's list price | $12.99 |
| What the checkout asked me to send | 14.483383 USDT |
| Network fee on my side | about 5 USDT |
| What the month cost me | 19.483383 USDT |
That's about 6.49 USDT over the list price, or roughly 50% more, for a $12.99 plan. That's the network and the checkout, not EroLove's pricing, but my wallet doesn't care whose fault it is.
Then the page said "expired"
While my transfer was still going through, the checkout told me the payment had expired and asked me to pick a coin and start again. When I picked USDT ERC20 again, it gave me a different address from the one I'd already sent to.
I didn't panic, and I didn't email support straight away. I'd already sent the money, so I checked the transaction on the blockchain and waited for it to finish confirming. My guess was that the receiving addresses rotate, and that the payment would still be credited once it confirmed. It took around five minutes. I refreshed, and I was on Premium. If it hadn't gone through, I was ready to email them.
More on what that month bought me is in my EroLove review.
Knowing crypto helped. It didn't make it smooth.
Both times, I got through because I already knew my way around. I knew support could fix a stuck payment. I knew I could look up my own transaction instead of trusting a page that said "expired".
Now picture someone who's never done this. They see "partially paid" with no way to top up. Or they see "expired" after sending almost 20 USDT. I can easily imagine someone in that spot sending the money a second time, or just assuming it's gone.
That's not a knock on anyone who isn't into crypto. It's the opposite. A card checkout doesn't ask you to know anything. These did.
Card vs crypto: what I liked, and what I didn't
I'm not anti-crypto. It has real upsides for this kind of app, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't like them. Here's how it shook out for me, across these two payments.
| My card | My two crypto payments | |
|---|---|---|
| What I paid | The plan price | More than the plan price, and 50% more on EroLove |
| Effort | Type the numbers, done | Pick a coin and a network, send, wait for confirmations |
| Renewal | Renews until I cancel | One payment, nothing to cancel |
| My card statement | The app's name, or its billing company | Nothing at all |
The two things I genuinely liked:
- No surprise renewals. Both payments were one-time. I didn't have to remember to cancel, because there was nothing to cancel. EroLove even says it emails you four days before your plan ends, so you get a reminder instead of a charge.
- Nothing on my card statement. If you'd rather not see an AI girlfriend app listed on your statement of account, crypto keeps it off. That's a real plus for a lot of people.
One thing to be clear about with that second one. Paying with crypto feels completely anonymous, but it isn't, not quite. Transactions sit on a public blockchain, and the exchange I sent from knows exactly who I am. What it is, is private from your card statement. For most people asking the question, that's the part that matters.
Most people don't pay for things with crypto anyway
After both payments, I got curious how normal this actually is. Turns out, not very. The Federal Reserve's 2025 survey of US households found that about 10% of adults used crypto in some way that year, but only 2% used it to buy something or make a payment. Most people who own it are holding it as an investment. There's a good breakdown of crypto ownership in the US if you want the bigger picture.
The part that stood out to me was why people pay with crypto. Among those who did, the most common main reason, at 26%, was that the person or business getting the money preferred it. Privacy came in at 17%. "Cheaper" was only 14%.
Most people who pay with crypto do it because the seller wants it. That was me, twice.
I wasn't paying in USDT because I thought it beat my credit card. I was paying in USDT because that's what the checkout offered me. And "cheaper" definitely wasn't my experience.
Would I pay for another AI girlfriend app with crypto?
If an app offers both, I'll pick my card. Every time.
It comes down to cost. When an app says $12.99 or $19.99, that's what I want to pay. Not $12.99 plus a checkout markup plus five dollars to the network. On a cheap monthly plan, those extras aren't small. On EroLove they were half the price again.
But I'd use crypto again when it's the easiest way in, like it was on NaughtyChats, or the only way in, like on EroLove. And if keeping the app off your card statement or avoiding auto-renewal matters more to you than a few dollars, crypto is a fair trade. Just know what you're signing up for:
- Check the network before you send. Solana was cheap for me. Ethereum (ERC20) was not.
- Check what lands, not just what you send. If fees come off the top, the checkout may see less than you think.
- Don't trust "expired" on its own. Look up your transaction first, and don't send a second payment until it's confirmed or support tells you to.
- Keep the support email handy. NaughtyChats fixed mine in under three hours.