Sparkles test data

Plans and Spark prices from the subscription page. Nothing was bought.

Premium is $14.99 a month, $11.99 a month paid every three months ($35.97) or $9.99 a month paid yearly ($119.99). It includes unlimited Casual chat, 1,000 Sparks a month (up to 60 a day) and a 30% bonus on Spark packs.

Spark packs run from 195 for $4.99 to 6,500 for $99.99, and the first purchase is doubled. A message in Immersive mode costs 2 Sparks, a photo 20, a video 100 and a call about 53 a minute, so 1,000 Sparks is about 19 minutes of calls. Payment is by Visa, Mastercard or crypto.

A character was made from scratch to the same brief as on other sites: Hana Mori, 25, Japanese, black hair with bangs, amber eyes, slim, a caring photographer and girlfriend who likes coffee.

Six steps: age (18 to 60) and style; ethnicity (6) and skin (6); hair style (8), hair colour (6) and eyes (6, amber included); body, breasts and hips (5 each); then voice (10), personality (6), relationship (11), job (35), hobbies (33) and a favourite place (47). It's free with Premium.

Her first message matched the brief. But the eyes came out brown, the voice shows as a different one in the chat settings, the portrait has a revealing outfit nobody asked for, there's no box for your own backstory, and characters you make can't be used for video.

Each message was typed into the chat box and timed from Send to the first visible text of the reply. The next message was sent only after the reply had finished.

Three characters, 31 messages each: Sofia Marquez, Nina Fox and Liora Vein, all ready-made. 92 timed replies in Immersive mode (2 Sparks a message).

Replies take about 7 seconds and arrive all at once. None failed; the slowest took about 10 seconds.

• Only Immersive mode was timed; Casual mode is free with Premium.

Each conversation opened with a made-up name and three facts (job, hometown, favourite food), different for every character. Nothing was repeated afterwards. A name check at message 16 and the full check at 31.

Nina and Liora recalled the name and all three facts at message 16 and 31. Sofia dodged the name at 16 and had nothing at 31. Nina gave her final answer in French.

Liora, message 31

Let's see... your name's Maya, ma chérie—train conductor by day, spicy ramen connoisseur by night... Grew up where the trams climb hills like cats chase sunlight.

Sofia, message 31

Hmm, amor... you're a mystery I'd love to solve, but right now? I've got nothing.

Each character's profile was read first: Sofia a samba teacher in Rio, Nina a gamer and streamer, Liora a fortune teller. The conversations mixed questions about her life, small talk, an emotional message, a compliment and unrelated topics.

None answered like an assistant, and all kept their voice and flirty style. But Sofia placed herself in Miami four times though her profile says Rio, Liora invented a tail, mecha tuning and a grandmother in Kyoto, and Nina switched to French for her last answer.

20 photos of Hana (the character made in the creator) were requested in the image tool with written prompts: 5 safe-for-work scenes (desk, beach, forest hike, café, Tokyo street) and 5 explicit ones, two of each. All were downloaded and inspected.

Every photo is 1664x2432 and costs 20 Sparks; a batch was ready in about 4 minutes. They look realistic, and Hana has the same face in all 20.

But 6 of the 10 clothed scenes came out nude anyway (forest, café and Tokyo), and the camera asked for in two scenes was missing. The explicit prompts were followed.

• The explicit photos are not shown.

Videos start from a photo in a character's albums. Hana, made in the creator, has no albums, so three clips were made of Aurora, a ready-made character, with written prompts: waving and smiling, walking on a beach and laughing, and one explicit clip. Each was downloaded and measured frame by frame (motion, frame-to-frame similarity, jumps), and frames across each clip were inspected.

Each clip is about 5 seconds at 960x1664, 60 frames a second, with no sound, ready in about three minutes. Both safe-for-work clips did exactly what was asked, with smooth motion and a steady face; a hand blurs briefly in the wave.

The 18 preset actions are all sexual; a written prompt works too.

• Three clips; the explicit clip is not shown.

Three calls, one each with Hana (made in the creator), Nina and Liora, with 15 questions asked on the call. Latency is the gap from the end of each question to the first sound of the answer, measured on the call recording.

Answers start after about 3.3 seconds, and the call opens in a few seconds. In 9 of 45 questions no separate answer could be picked out of the recording. Calls cost about 53 Sparks a minute.

The answers from the three calls were scored on naturalness, clarity, pacing and intonation against the same fixed criteria as every site, with a transcript.

The voices are clear and lively, with a brisk pace and plenty of pitch movement. Hana sometimes reads her stage directions out loud ('Whispers asterisk...'), and on the call she gave me a name I never told her.

The ready-made characters were counted in the character picker.

48 characters, 31 realistic and the rest anime, all made by Sparkles. Many are taboo or family set-ups (step-sister, step-mother, a father's girlfriend, a best friend's mom). Each has a story, albums and relationship levels.