NovelAI

Encrypted AI story writing and anime image generation by subscription

Productivity Subscription
Researched · Published · Reviewed
RECATOOLS Score
7 / 10
Founded
2021
HQ
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Users
2.5M+ total users (2023)
Launched
Jun 2021
Developer
Anlatan Inc.

Overview

NovelAI, from Anlatan, is a subscription service for AI fiction writing with lorebooks and memory (Xialong, GLM-4.6, Erato, Kayra) and anime-style image generation on NovelAI Diffusion V5, with stories encrypted end to end. One-time trial; Tablet $10, Scroll $15, Opus $25 a month.

Advertisement

Pricing

Pricing shown for reference only. These figures reflect RECATOOLS research as of 1 Oct 2026 and may be out of date or incomplete. This is not financial or purchasing advice — always confirm the current price on the provider’s official website before making any decision.

Tablet
$10/mo
Monthly subscription
  • Unlimited text and text-to-speech
  • 8,192-token memory, GLM-4.6
  • 1,000 Anlas a month; images pay-as-you-go
  • 20% off Anlas purchases
Scroll
$15/mo
Monthly subscription
  • Everything in Tablet
  • 12,288-token memory

Use cases

Anime art Character illustration Fan art

What you can produce with NovelAI

  • AI co-writing with lorebooks and memory
  • Text models: Xialong, GLM-4.6, Erato, Kayra, Clio
  • Anime-style image generation (NovelAI Diffusion V5)
  • Text-to-speech
  • End-to-end encrypted story storage
  • Explore community image gallery (opt-in)
Advertisement
RECATOOLS Verdict

NovelAI remains the most private of the AI fiction tools — stories are encrypted so the company says it cannot read them — and its writing tools (lorebooks, memory, fine-grained generation settings) suit long-form storytellers better than general chatbots. Opus at $25 a month is the tier that matters: it alone gets Xialong, the large GLM-4.6 fine-tune, the longest memory and free everyday image generation. Its anime image model, Diffusion V5, is among the strongest in its niche, though Opus image use now has a cap. There is no free plan beyond a small trial and no official API. Best for hobbyist writers and illustrators who value privacy; start on Tablet and move up if you want Xialong.

Desk research by RECATOOLS from public sources, written with AI assistance — not a hands-on test. How we review

What we found

NovelAI is a subscription service for AI-assisted fiction writing and anime-style image generation, run by Anlatan since its launch in June 2021. Its story editor writes alongside you with lorebooks, memory and adjustable generation settings, and its text models now include Xialong, a 355-billion-parameter fine-tune of Zhipu AI's GLM-4.6 released in March 2026, the untuned GLM-4.6, Llama 3 Erato, and the older in-house Kayra and Clio. Images moved to NovelAI Diffusion V5 in August 2026, which NovelAI says it trained in-house on 268,000 B200 GPU-hours; it handles up to 22 characters in a scene, transparency, and prompts in English or Japanese, with a more conservative Curated model alongside. In July NovelAI opened Explore, an opt-in community gallery where every upload is reviewed, and in May it cancelled AetherRoom, its planned chat app.

Privacy is the main pitch: NovelAI says stories are encrypted end to end so it cannot read them, and that it does not store generation prompts. Models run on CoreWeave infrastructure. It places no limits on commercial use of generated images, though the open base models behind some text models carry their own licences.

There is no ongoing free plan, only a one-time trial of 30 images, 50 text generations and 100 text-to-speech generations for verified accounts. Tablet costs $10 a month for unlimited text and speech, an 8,192-token memory, GLM-4.6 and 1,000 Anlas, the credit currency used for images. Scroll, at $15, raises memory to 12,288 tokens. Opus, at $25, offers 28,672 tokens, Xialong and Erato, 10,000 Anlas and free normal-size image generations, now with a usage limit on V5. Unused subscription Anlas lapse when a subscription ends.

NovelAI posts in Japanese as well as English and has a large Japanese following. It suits writers and illustrators who want private storage and few restrictions; it is a consumer product and markets no official developer API.

Compiled by RECATOOLS from public sources: vendor documentation and pricing, code repositories and published reporting.

About this listing

Researched on
Published on
Last reviewed

This entry was compiled from publicly available data including NovelAI's official website, press releases, documentation, and reputable third-party publications. RECATOOLS is not affiliated with NovelAI unless explicitly stated.

Data accuracy

Third-party AI tools update their pricing, features, availability, and policies frequently. Information here may be outdated by the time you read this — we make reasonable efforts to keep listings current, but cannot guarantee absolute accuracy.

For the latest details, please refer to NovelAI directly →

Spotted something out of date? Suggest an update →

Advertisement