AI Psychics Are Sold by the Day. The Humans Still Charge by the Minute

Astriva, a psychic chat app, added four AI fortune-tellers on Oct. 8. Its human advisors charge by the minute. The AI ones are sold by the block: $7.99 buys 24 hours with an AI called Nova, while a human psychic named Gia, listed on the same home screen, costs $10 a minute.

Pay-per-minute psychic apps are starting to put AI readers out in the open, and they disagree on how to charge for them. Astriva keeps its AI apart from its human advisors and sells it by the hour, day or week. Zendiac, which sits on the grossing charts in Singapore and Malaysia, renamed itself on Oct. 12 from "Zendiac Live Astrology" to "Zendiac: AI Astrology & Chat." Its AI readers share one list with its human ones and are billed by the minute, just like them. For the person paying, the difference is whether they know who is on the other end.

Astriva sells its AI as a separate product. The four AI Seers are Nova, Aria, Iris and Gaia, each with its own voice and temperament. Aria is tagged "Warm · Patient," Iris "Blunt · Precise." Nova's profile promises replies in about four seconds and adds a line saying it is not for medical, legal or financial decisions. AI time is paid from a separate "Seer Balance," topped up apart from the credits used for human readers, and new users get a free three-minute trial.

The fine print is unusually specific. Under terms updated Sept. 22, every AI Seer carries an AI label that cannot be switched off, says it is an AI if asked whether it is human, and the app repeats that reminder during long chats. A session starts the moment payment clears and keeps running whether or not you type, with no refunds for unused time. "Unlimited" messaging has a ceiling too: Astriva may throttle use it considers far beyond normal human conversation.

Zendiac mixes its AI in with the humans and keeps the meter running. The app built its business on live chats with Vedic astrologers, with three free minutes every day. Its website now also lists "AI Astrologer Avatars," described as trained on real practitioners and available between live sessions. In its store screenshots, an AI-labeled reader called Seer Rowan sits beside Astro Kaavya, who carries no AI label, both at $0.50 a minute; two more AI-labeled readers charge $0.30. The AI readers have photos of real-looking people and the same "12.5k Readings" count underneath.

The app is making money. On Oct. 15, three days after the rename, it ranked No. 41 among grossing Lifestyle apps in Singapore, up from No. 68 a day earlier, and it was in the top 100 of the same chart in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Zendiac says much less about its AI. Its terms of use and privacy policy are still the December 2024 versions, and neither mentions AI. Some users noticed the AI before the name changed: a two-star U.S. review on Oct. 9 said the writer lost interest after seeing AI involved in the predictions, and that the minutes ran out quickly. Several one-star reviews in India between March and May said the answers read like AI and sounded the same whatever was asked. Those are users' claims, and Zendiac's public pages do not say which conversations come from AI.

The meter has always been how these apps work. People paid by the minute because a real person was spending that minute listening to them. Once the listener may be a machine, the minute is worth less, and knowing who is on the line may be worth more.