CandyShorts review, scored

The subject here is Shorts and nothing more; Candy AI as a whole is out of scope. You will find chat, voice calls and the character creator on the features page; they stay out of the scores deliberately, because they are a different product that just happens to share the subscription.

The short version

Vertical video made by AI and arranged in numbered series, not scattered clips. Open a series and you get a poster, a premise of three or four lines and an episode list to watch in order. That structure is the whole proposition. The rest of this review is detail that hangs off it.

Why it matters: most AI video is still one-off generations with no memory of one another. Of the mainstream options, Shorts is the only attempt I have found at produced serialised content, where someone wrote a premise, cast it, cut it into episodes and put it out as a season. Whether or not you like the results, that is genuinely new.

The catalogue, counted

I counted 115 live series on 25 September 2026. Existing series keep getting new episodes, and when a card shows the pink New Episodes flag, it means exactly that: it is not decoration.

A figure like that needs a date beside it, and this is where the first version of the review slipped. My first count, on 10 September, came to twenty-four, and I called the catalogue a small library. Twelve days later it held 108, then 115 by 25 September 2026. Small is the wrong word. The right one is fast, and speed cuts both ways.

Here is the downside. Five of the original twenty-four series had left the grid by the second count. Nothing announces a departure and you can’t download anything, so a series you are halfway through can become hard to find. Judge the catalogue by what is there today, not by a month-old list you read somewhere, including this one.

Keep in mind, too, that each entry is a series and not a clip. 115 series hold far more viewing than 115 single videos would, which is why setting this catalogue against the raw volume of a tube site, the obvious comparison, is misleading.

What daily use is like

You browse a grid with a row of category filters above it; there were thirteen when I checked. Two badges carry most of the information, pink for new episodes and orange Spicy for the more explicit series. Between them you can size up a card before you click it, something most catalogues never get right.

The gaps tell you more. There is no search, no sorting and no episode count on the cards, so you can’t tell whether a series runs to three episodes or fifteen until you open it. At the current size you can browse your way around that. It will not scale.

Inside a series, things are clean. The poster and its play button sit to the left; the premise, the episodes and a padlock on each one you have not unlocked yet sit to the right. The layout is honest, because you see the shape of what you would be paying for before you pay.

The free tier, tested

Rather than trust the plan page, I tested all of this on a free account. It is the part where my results part company most with what other sources tell you.

You can browse everything. Every card, title, badge, premise and episode list is free to view, and much of it does not even need an account. That is better than the sector norm, and the strongest single reason to look before you make up your mind.

Episode one is always free; episode two costs you a free sign-up at most. This is the point most often misreported, and I misreported it here too. Back in September I sampled three series, ran into one that was locked, and concluded that episode one was hit and miss. On 22 September 2026 I went back over 23 series (the thirteen this site covers, plus ten picked at random from the catalogue). Only episodes one and two had a video, both played with no account, and none of the series was locked from the start. On 26 September 2026 I returned to 20 series, again without an account, and found the platform serving two versions of the page: one still plays episodes one and two, the other plays episode one and asks you for a free sign-up before episode two.

So the free tier now scores 8, up from 6. It misses 9 because of the ceiling rather than the gate. Two episodes, even with a free sign-up before the second, are a fair sample, yet no series finishes its story inside them. And no card tells you where the paywall begins, which a single badge could still fix with little effort.

What it costs

You can’t buy Shorts by itself. One Candy AI Premium subscription covers the episodes together with the rest of the platform.

Take the annual plan and you get good value; take the monthly one and you don’t. At €3.99 a month, opening every episode of 115 produced series with no limits is cheap. Paying the €13.99 list price, which is where the monthly plan returns, for a catalogue this size is not.

Even so, I would still start on the monthly plan, though it costs more. Make sure you actually watch before you pay for twelve months up front, because the annual discount saves you money only if you use the whole year. The pricing and access page has every detail.

Who it isn’t for

• You expect to see all you pay for. A whole category is hidden on candyshorts.com. Seven Spicy-tagged series exist only inside candy.ai, and nothing on the grid you browse suggests a shelf is missing.
• You like to own what you watch. It streams and nothing downloads; when the subscription stops, so does access. Think of it as a rental.
• You actually want to generate. Shorts is made for viewers. Making your own videos runs on tokens, a separate budget with a page of its own: see video generation.
• You only want a weekend of it. The subscription renews. Set yourself a reminder on the day you subscribe, not on the day you get bored.

Written by Elliot Shaw in September 2026 and tested on a free Candy AI account. The scores cover the Shorts format and nothing else. This site may earn a commission through some links; that does not move the score, and printing the two lowest marks on this page costs us money. How we work.