Free AI NPC Tools in 2026 - What Each Free Plan Really Includes
"Free" means very different things across AI NPC tools. Some free plans are a real place to build. Some are a short trial. Some are free because someone else pays.
Here is what each free option includes as of October 2026.
Quick comparison
| Tool | What is free | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Neocortex | Free plan with characters, flows and monthly credits; testing in the browser editor is free on every plan | Commercial use starts on the Pro plan |
| Convai | 100 interactions a month | One monthly active user and one concurrent session on the free plan |
| Inworld | Pay as you go with some free TTS and STT minutes | Usage-billed beyond that, and no character editor since Studio was retired |
| Charisma.ai | One-month trial with credits | No ongoing free plan |
| Player2 | Free for developers and players | Every player needs a Player2 account, and NPCs stop when a player's credits run out |
| ElevenLabs Agents | 15 agent minutes a month | No Unity SDK, and commercial use starts on a paid plan |
| LLMUnity | Free and open source | You build the character, voice and tooling yourself |
| NVIDIA ACE | Free plugins and open models | Unreal Engine 5, RTX hardware and significant engineering |
Which free option fits your project?
Learning or a game jam. Neocortex's free plan lets you build characters and talk to them in the browser without spending credits, so you can iterate as much as you like. Player2 is also popular for jams if your players are happy to sign in.
Offline or privacy-first experiments. LLMUnity in Unity, NobodyWho in Godot, or NVIDIA ACE in Unreal on RTX hardware. With Neocortex you can also run open models locally through Ollama in Unity.
Prototyping a commercial game. Start on a free plan, but check what happens at launch: per-player caps, per-minute charges and account requirements matter more than the free tier.
Why so many developers start on Neocortex
- Free testing. Talking to characters in the editor never uses credits.
- No player accounts. Your players just play.
- Full features. Visual character editor, voice, actions and SDKs for Unity, Unreal, Godot (beta) and the web.
- A clear path up. Paid plans from €9 a month with commercial use from Pro, and custom plans for studios.
Related
Free plan details were last checked in October 2026 and change often. Confirm on each vendor's pricing page.
Written by
Sercan Altundas
Date
Oct 17, 2026
Read time
5 min
