Access and prices
Is Candy Shorts free?
Partly. Browsing and episode one are free, episode two is free or follows a free sign-up, and the rest is paid. Tested on a free account to find the line.
Verified on 26 September 2026
Open on Candy AIA plain yes-or-no answer is not much use to you here. What you need is where the line falls, and I tested that on a free account in September 2026: the list below reflects what such an account actually lets you do, not what a plan page implies.
What you can do for free
Two of these surprised me. Image generation inside the chat is free: I tried it, and the image came back whole, unobstructed and in keeping with the conversation. The character creator, on the other hand, walks you through every screen and then silently keeps the character back. My roster was still empty at the end.
What you get by paying
The prices
You won’t find a Shorts tier. One Candy AI Premium subscription covers the episodes and everything else, and your monthly price depends on how long you commit for.
12 months
€3.99/month
70% off
Billed yearly in one go · €13.99/mo at list price
3 months
€8.99/month
35% off
Billed every 3 months · €13.99/mo at list price
1 month
€9.99/month
29% off
Discount covers the first month · then €13.99/mo
Checked in euros on 10 September 2026. Your country decides which currency Candy AI shows, so your total may not match.
View today’s plansKeep in mind the number nobody advertises: €13.99 a month, the undiscounted list price. The annual plan genuinely costs less per month, yet you hand over twelve months up front, and the attractive monthly figure lasts one month before it goes up to list.
Tokens are a separate thing
This is where a lot of people go wrong, so here is a clean split. Your subscription and your token allowance are two different currencies, and each pays for its own things.
| Included in the subscription | Paid with tokens | |
|---|---|---|
| Shorts episodes | Yes, all of them | 12 shown on each locked episode; we have not tested it |
| Chat messages | Yes, unlimited | — |
| Voice and calls | Yes | — |
| Image and video generation | — | Yes |
| Private Content videos | — | Yes, item by item |
Paid plans include 100 tokens a month. If you mainly want to watch Shorts, tokens barely matter. If you want to generate, they run out sooner than you expect, video above all.
Is it worth paying for?
It depends on which half of the platform you came for. The honest breakdown:
- You want to watch Shorts: yes, and the annual plan makes it cheap. 115 series, new episodes included, all covered without per-item charges. You get a lot of viewing for the monthly price of a coffee.
- You want to make images and video: be careful. The subscription only opens the door; tokens are the actual limit, and 100 a month runs dry quickly once video is involved.
- You haven’t decided yet: go monthly first. It costs more per month and is still the sensible choice, because you find out whether you really use it before committing to a year.
Before you decide, give the free tier twenty minutes. Look through the catalogue, play episode one, then try episode two (a free sign-up may be asked for first), and exchange a few messages with a character. That will tell you more than anything written here.
Start with the free episodes
and decide later
- The whole catalogue, free to browse
- Episode one always free; episode two free or after a free sign-up
- No separate Shorts tier: one subscription covers everything
Official website · 18+
Your questions, answered
Is Candy Shorts free?
Partly. Browsing the catalogue is free, and episode one cost nothing on every series we checked. Episode two plays at once or after a free sign-up, depending on the version of the page you get. Anything past episode two requires a Candy AI Premium subscription.
How much does it cost?
Premium starts at €3.99 a month if you take the twelve-month plan. The three-month plan works out at €8.99, and a discounted first month costs €9.99. With no discount you pay the list price, €13.99 a month. Prices are localised, so yours may look different.
Is there a Shorts-only subscription?
No. Shorts comes inside the one Candy AI Premium subscription, alongside chat, voice, character creation and the rest of the platform. You cannot buy it on its own.
Can I pay for a single episode?
Not with money. Episodes are unlocked by the subscription, and none of them has a cash price. Every locked episode does show a price of 12 tokens (checked on 26 September 2026), but we have not tried unlocking one that way, so we cannot tell you whether it works or whether it is worth it. Private Content, the platform’s other pay-per-item section, also runs on tokens.
What happens if I cancel?
Your access ends. The subscription only unlocks episodes while it is active, and at no point does it buy them outright.
Is there a free trial?
Not a time-limited one. The free tier does the job of a trial: look through the whole catalogue, play episode one, try episode two (a free sign-up may come first), and make up your mind from there.
In September 2026 Elliot Shaw verified the prices and the free-tier limits, both on the official site and on a free account. Candy AI displays prices in your local currency, so your total may differ. Found an error? Tell us.