Why is there a per-minute charge at all?
Because a conversation costs us real money every time it happens — speech recognition, the model that writes the answer, and the voice that speaks it back. We could hide that by setting one high monthly fee that assumes you're busy, and most vendors do. Instead every plan includes a block of minutes and anything past it is $0.29. Quiet months cost you less than they would under a padded flat fee.
Will I get a surprise bill?
No. We mail you at 80% of your included minutes and again when you reach them, nothing auto-upgrades, and you can set a hard cap where the avatar politely hands visitors to your contact page instead of running up a bill. You will never be billed for a minute you did not agree to in advance.
How long is a conversation, really?
We don't have enough sites live to quote you a real average yet, so rather than invent one, here is the arithmetic. At three minutes a conversation, 500 minutes is about 165 conversations a month, 1,500 is about 500, and 4,000 is about 1,300. If you start outgrowing your block, we would rather move you up a plan than let the meter do it quietly.
What if I don't like it?
Then you don't pay the rest of it. Half starts the build; the other half is only due after you've talked to your own avatar on a private link and said yes. If you say no, we stop there, nothing is deployed, and you owe nothing more.
Why is it split in half?
Because you have no reason to trust us yet. The split puts a week of our work in front of your second payment instead of asking you to take our word for it. Nothing touches your domain until you have talked to the thing and approved it.
What languages does it speak?
All of them, on every plan, with nothing to set up. A visitor writes or speaks in Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, German — it answers in the same language, in the same conversation. That is how the underlying speech and language models work, so we do not gate it or charge per language the way most tools do. Your own material can be in one language and a visitor can still ask in another.
Can it speak in my own voice?
Yes. For $300 we clone your voice from a few minutes of audio you send us, and the avatar speaks as you. If you would rather not, every plan already includes a professional voice — you just pick the one and the accent that fit, at no extra cost. Voice and face are independent: you can have your own voice on a library face, or the reverse.
Why is the library option cheaper than custom?
Because a library face and a library voice are ours — built once, used for many customers — while your own face is a modelling week and your own voice is a clone made only for you. The setup around them — the conversation design, the deployment, the testing — is nearly the same either way, and that is what the base fee covers. The add-ons are priced like the extra work they are, not as a markup.
Is a library face or voice worse?
No — same real-time 3D, same conversation design, same everything but the identity. For a clinic or an agency the library option is usually the better answer anyway: visitors want a competent front desk, not a 3am hologram of the owner. Pay for your own face or voice when the person IS the business.
Can I stop?
Yes. Email us and say stop. Month-to-month, no minimum term, no notice period to serve. We would rather you cancel in a sentence than stay because leaving is annoying. The build is yours; the running is what you're stopping.
Is there a free trial?
No. There is nothing to spin up — an avatar is built by hand for one person over about a week, so a trial would be a week of our work given away rather than a switch we flick. What you get instead is the approval gate, and a live avatar you can interrogate for free right now without giving us anything.
