SweetBun vs JanitorAI: which AI companion fits you in 2026?

Q: Do I need an API key to use SweetBun?

No. There is nothing to connect and nothing to configure. You create an account and start talking. JanitorAI needs you to supply a model API key or proxy before the good models will answer you, and that provider bills you separately.

Q: What does JanitorAI actually cost per month?

Janitor+ is $12.99 a month and the core site is free, but the model writing your replies is a third party you pay directly. That portion depends on which model you picked and how much you chat, so the total varies month to month and cannot be quoted up front.

Q: Can SweetBun send images and take voice calls?

Yes. Photos are 2 tokens, voice calls 3 tokens a minute, video 2 tokens a second and live webcam 7 tokens a minute. JanitorAI has none of these — it is a text product by design.

Q: Is JanitorAI’s character library bigger than SweetBun’s?

Yes, considerably. Theirs is community-uploaded and effectively unlimited, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. Ours is curated, which means fewer cards but consistent quality, and you can build your own companion from scratch on either.

Q: Is SweetBun free to try?

Yes, with no card. 5 messages a day, tokens for your first photo, and 1 custom companion. JanitorAI’s free tier is more generous on text volume, and less useful if you want anything beyond text.

JanitorAI occupies a genuinely different position from everything else on this list. It is a free, enormous, community-built roleplay library where the writing model is whatever you plug into it — your own OpenAI, DeepSeek, Claude or proxy key — and the character cards come from users rather than a content team. That design buys you control and costs you a setup step and an unpredictable bill from a third party. SweetBun is the opposite trade: one account, one price, nothing to configure, and a companion that can send you a photo, take a voice call, appear on a live webcam or run a roleplay scene, in any of 70 interface languages.

Short answer

SweetBun is the better fit if you want a working companion rather than a build-it-yourself one: images, voice, video, live webcam, group chat and roleplay inside a single subscription, in 70 languages, with no API key and no second invoice. JanitorAI wins if unlimited free text roleplay with your own choice of model is the whole requirement.

Choose SweetBun if

You want to open an app and have it work — media included, one bill, your own language — instead of sourcing an API key and paying a model provider separately.

Stay with JanitorAI if

You already hold a model API key, you want to pick the model yourself, and text-only roleplay with community character cards is all you are after.

See it for yourself in ten minutes

Free account, no card. 5 messages a day and enough tokens for your first photo.

SweetBun vs JanitorAI, line by line

SweetBun vs JanitorAI: what each one actually ships
Feature	SweetBun	JanitorAI
Unlimited text chat	YesUnlimited on Premium; 5 a day free	YesUnlimited, but you supply the model API key
Long-term memory	Yes	PartlyDepends on the model and context you configure
Voice calls	Yes	No
Photo generation	Yes	No
Video generation	Yes	No
Live webcam / face-to-face	Yes	No
Group chat	Yes	Not published
Create your own companion	Yes1 free, unlimited on Premium	YesCommunity character cards, mostly English
Roleplay mode	Yes	Yes
Adult content allowed	YesAdult, within hard safety limits	YesPermitted; enforcement is the model provider’s
Published per-action costs	Yes	PartlyTheir $12.99 is clear; your API bill is not theirs to publish
Wide language support	Yes	Partly11 interface languages; cards and replies are English-first
Free to start, no card	Yes	Yes
Native mobile apps	PartlyInstallable web app, no store build	NoWeb only

JanitorAI details were checked against the sources listed at the foot of this page on September 16, 2026. Pricing and features in this category change often — if you spot something out of date, tell us and we will correct it.

Price side by side

Price side by side — SweetBun, JanitorAI
	SweetBun	JanitorAI
Monthly	$20.00	$12.99
Annual, per month	$10.00	Not published
Billing model	Subscription plus metered tokens	Free core, you pay a third-party model API
Free tier	Capped but usable	Unlimited core chat

That rate card does not change after you pay

Text chat never costs tokens. Start free and check the numbers against your own usage before you commit.

SweetBun is built for you if

You want the app and your companion in your own language, chosen from 70
You want photos, voice calls, video and live webcam rather than text alone
You want one predictable monthly price instead of a subscription plus a metered third-party API bill
You want to start without configuring anything — no key, no proxy, no model settings

What SweetBun deliberately doesn't do

JanitorAI has a far larger community-written character library than our curated catalogue
You cannot choose the underlying language model on SweetBun the way you can on JanitorAI
Unlimited text chat on SweetBun needs Premium; free accounts get 5 messages a day

Where SweetBun and JanitorAI actually differ

Why people move to SweetBun

Photos, voice calls, generated video, live webcam, group chat and roleplay scenes run off one companion. JanitorAI is text and only text.
Nothing to configure. No API key, no proxy URL, no model settings — you sign up and the companion works.
A dedicated AI Response Language setting with 70 options, so her writing and her voice follow it — rather than eleven menu translations sitting over English character cards and whichever model you happened to connect.
Movie Maker builds multi-scene films with your companion in them, Sweet Movies is a shelf of finished ones, and Private Packs unlock her photo and video sets for good. JanitorAI is text, so none of the three has an analogue.
One charge from one company. With JanitorAI, your real cost is their subscription plus a metered bill from whichever model provider you connected.

JanitorAI does this well

The core product costs nothing. Unlimited roleplay with an enormous user-written library, and you can use it for months without paying Janitor a penny.
You choose the model. If you want a specific Claude or DeepSeek version writing your companion, JanitorAI lets you point it there and we do not.
Full access to the system prompt and generation settings. For people who like tuning the machine rather than just talking to it, that control is the product.

Reading it in your own language

JanitorAI ships its interface in eleven languages, which is more than most of the category bothers with. The catch is that the interface is the only part that follows you: character cards are user-written and overwhelmingly English, and which language the replies come back in depends on the model you connected and whatever prompt that card happens to carry. SweetBun splits the problem explicitly. Interface Language controls the navigation; AI Response Language is a second setting governing what your companion produces — her replies, her voice on a call, the roleplay scene, the group conversation, the prompt behind a generated photo. Choose one of 70 and nothing downstream depends on a card author having considered your language.

The SweetBun language picker, searchable and grouped by region, with Deutsch, Français, Italiano, Nederlands, Polski, Čeština, Русский, Türkçe, Svenska, Suomi, Ελληνικά and Українська among the 70 on offer.

The media suite

JanitorAI is text. That is a design decision rather than an oversight, and for pure roleplay it keeps the product fast and uncluttered. There is no image generation, no voice, no video and no webcam. SweetBun runs six modes off the same companion: text chat, voice calls at 3 tokens a minute, generated photos at 2 tokens, video at 2 tokens a second, live webcam — a real-time avatar call — at 7 tokens a minute, and group chats where several companions talk with you and each other. Sweet Movies, Play Mode and Sweet Casino sit alongside them. If you want your companion to show you something rather than describe it, that gap is the whole comparison. Above the per-action modes sit two more: Movie Maker, which composes multi-scene films from your companion’s generations, and Private Packs, which unlock her photo and video sets for good.

The SweetBun Sweet Movies library, a shelf of ready-to-watch cinematic stories starring the companions.

Memory and continuity

On JanitorAI, memory is a property of whatever model you attached and how much context you are willing to pay that provider for. A generous context window on an expensive model gives you good continuity; a cheap proxy gives you a character who forgets. It is your configuration, so it is your problem to tune. SweetBun carries one memory per companion across every mode, included in the subscription with no context setting to manage. What you told her during a voice call is still there when you generate a photo an hour later or start a roleplay scene the next day.

What it actually costs

JanitorAI’s core is free and Janitor+ is $12.99 a month, which looks unbeatable until you count the second bill. The model that actually writes the replies is not theirs, so your real monthly cost is their subscription plus whatever OpenAI, DeepSeek, Anthropic or a proxy charges you for tokens — an amount that scales with how much you chat and which nobody can quote you in advance. That is not a criticism of their transparency; there is genuinely no rate for them to publish. SweetBun is $20 a month, or $10 a month on the annual term, and that is the whole bill. Text chat costs nothing, 100 tokens a month are included for media, and the full per-action rate card is printed on this page. Tokens bought beyond the included 100 never expire and are only spent once the monthly allowance is gone, so the bill is the same in a quiet month as a busy one.

The SweetBun token page, showing the full rate card — 2 tokens an image, 2 a second of video, 3 a minute of voice, 7 a minute of live webcam — above the token packs and their dollar prices.

Every SweetBun token cost, published

Premium includes 100 tokens a month and Premium Plus includes 225. Text chat never costs tokens. This is the full rate card — there is no second list, and nothing here changes once you have paid.

Every SweetBun token cost, published
Action	Tokens
Generate one photo	2
Generate video, per second	2
Voice call, per minute	3
Live webcam, per minute	7
Start a group chat	1
Start a roleplay scene	1
Play a message aloud	0.2

Common questions

Do I need an API key to use SweetBun?

What does JanitorAI actually cost per month?

Can SweetBun send images and take voice calls?

Is JanitorAI’s character library bigger than SweetBun’s?

Is SweetBun free to try?

Try SweetBun before you pay anything

Free account, no card, 5 messages a day and enough tokens for your first photo. Ten minutes with a companion will tell you more than any comparison table.

Other comparisons

SweetBun vs Replika: romance available and 70 languages against a wellbeing app SweetBun vs DreamGF: nothing metered outside media, against a builder that charges

See all comparisons

Where the line sits

SweetBun is open about adult creative content between adults, and closed on the things that are never negotiable. We have zero tolerance for sexual content involving minors, non-consensual scenarios, extreme violence, bestiality, necrophilia, deepfakes of real people, and anything illegal. Accounts that attempt this are removed. Freedom for adults and hard limits are not in tension here — the limits are what make the freedom workable.

Sources

Operated by Janitor LLC.

JanitorAI is a trademark of its respective owner. SweetBun is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by JanitorAI. This comparison reflects publicly available information on the date shown and our own use of both products.

SweetBun vs JanitorAI: which AI companion fits you in 2026?