NovelAI Review: Features, Pricing & Alternatives

What is NovelAI?

NovelAI is a subscription service for AI-assisted storytelling and anime-style image generation. You write a story and the AI continues it in your style, or you play it as a text adventure. Tools such as Memory, Author’s Note and the Lorebook let you keep characters, places and rules consistent across long stories, and a separate image generator creates anime and illustration art.

NovelAI is developed by Anlatan Inc., a US company, and launched in 2021. Its text models have moved from in-house models such as Kayra and the Llama 3-based Erato to GLM-4.6, added in October 2025, and Xialong, a storytelling fine-tune of GLM-4.6 for Opus subscribers. The image side now promotes NovelAI Diffusion V5. In 2025 Anlatan formally cancelled its AetherRoom chat project.

Privacy and creative freedom are its distinguishing features. NovelAI’s terms say stored stories are encrypted and the decryption key is tied to your login, so lost passwords cannot be recovered. The service is for users aged 18 and over and allows mature fiction that many mainstream assistants refuse, which makes it popular with novelists, role-players and fan-fiction writers.

Key features of NovelAI

• Story co-writingThe AI continues your prose, matching style and tone, with options to retry, edit and branch.
• Text adventure modePlay interactive fiction by typing actions and dialogue for your character.
• Memory, Author’s Note and LorebookKeep key facts, style instructions and world details in context so long stories stay consistent.
• Multiple text modelsChoose from GLM-4.6, the storytelling-tuned Xialong and older models such as Erato and Kayra, depending on your tier.
• Anime image generationGenerate and inpaint anime-style illustrations, paid with Anlas credits or free within limits on Opus.
• Encrypted storageStories saved on NovelAI’s servers are encrypted with a key tied to your account login.

Who is NovelAI best for?

• Novelists and fan-fiction writers who want an AI collaborator for long, consistent stories.
• Interactive fiction fans who enjoy text adventures and role-play.
• Anime and illustration artists who want a specialised image generator.
• Privacy-conscious writers who want their stories encrypted.

Popular ways to use NovelAI

• Story continuation: write an opening and let the AI suggest the next passage.
• Worldbuilding: use the Lorebook to track characters, factions and places.
• Text adventures: play a fantasy or sci-fi scenario turn by turn.
• Character art: generate anime portraits of story characters.
• Beating writer’s block: generate alternative scenes and pick the best direction.

NovelAI pricing (October 2026)

Subscriptions renew monthly. Extra Anlas for image generation can be bought on demand, and NovelAI adjusted its usage limits and Anlas policy in August 2025.

NovelAI pros and cons

How to get started with NovelAI

1. Create an account at novelai.net and verify your email to unlock the free trial.
2. Start a new story, choose a model and write a few paragraphs.
3. Add characters and places to the Lorebook and key facts to Memory.
4. Use Author’s Note to steer style, then generate and edit continuations.
5. Upgrade to Tablet, Scroll or Opus once the trial runs out.

Tips to get better results from NovelAI

• Write a strong opening in the style you want; the AI follows your prose closely.
• Keep Lorebook entries short and use clear keywords so they trigger correctly.
• Export backups of important stories, since encrypted content cannot be recovered without your password.
• Edit AI output freely; small corrections steer future generations.

NovelAI vs alternatives

Sudowrite is the closest rival for novelists and offers more planning and revision tools, while NovelAI is stronger for interactive fiction and privacy. Character.AI focuses on chatting with characters rather than writing prose.

General assistants like Claude and ChatGPT write fiction well but have stricter content rules and no Lorebook. For images, Midjourney and Leonardo.Ai cover wider styles, while NovelAI specialises in anime art. See all best AI writing tools.

Our verdict: is NovelAI worth it?

NovelAI FAQs

Pricing and features change often. Details on this page were last reviewed in October 2026. Always confirm current plans on the official NovelAI website.