SPMates Review: Features, Pricing & My Test Results

SPMates (spmates.com, also called SPACETIME MATE) is a website where you chat with characters other users have made. There are women, men, trans characters and 'other beings', plus a tab of episodic stories and a tab of 'replicas', which are verified real creators.

SPMates: Elsie Hart's chat screen with the photo strip, her first reply and the message box

Everything runs on NOVA credits, and a chat message costs about one.

It's an adult site. Characters go from sweet to explicit, and the public catalogue includes some content I'll come back to.

SPMates membership centre with the Stardust, Moonlight, Galaxy and Universe plans

Paying is the awkward part. Checkout offers SPACE Coin, Alipay and WeChat Pay. To get SPACE Coin you buy an activation code on a separate shop called Payhip, then type it in. There's no card button on the site itself.

SPMates checkout dialog listing SPACE Coin payment, Alipay and WeChat Pay

Refunds are reviewed case by case within 14 days. Nothing renews, so there's nothing to cancel. My account came from the SPMates team, so I couldn't test a refund.

Is it worth it?

For chat, yes. $10 buys more messages than you'll send in a month, and a private character.

For pictures and videos, it's fair. $10 covers roughly 80 pictures or 65 short videos, but expect some pictures to miss the scene. The full breakdown is in the pricing test results.

The creator is very deep. You generate or upload her photos, pick a name, type, country and style tags, fill in her job and age, choose one of 274 voices or clone one, write her background in your own words, and set how fast the relationship moves. There are also 30 ready-made style instructions, from 'warm and empathetic' to 'dark and possessive'.

Building Nora, step by step

I made Nora Quinn, 29, who owns a bookshop in Edinburgh. She grew up in Inverness, has a cat called Brodie, and her brother Callum is a nurse. I set her as a romantic partner.

SPMates: the character type chooser with Private character, Public character, Create my replica and Create product

SPMates: the character creation form showing the appearance and identity sections

The result

Her portrait took about 70 seconds and matched every word I asked for: auburn hair, green eyes, freckles, a cream sweater and a bookshop café. It looks like a real photo.

SPMates creator portrait of Nora Quinn with auburn hair, green eyes and freckles in a cream sweater in a bookshop café

Then I chatted with her in the creator's Test chat. Replies came in about 5 seconds, and she used every detail I gave her without being asked: Brodie the cat, Inverness, her brother Callum, Sunday walks in the Pentlands, crime novels, even a Scottish 'Aye'.

SPMates Test chat with Nora Quinn mentioning her cat Brodie, Inverness, her brother Callum and the Pentlands

One catch: in her very first reply, to someone who had just walked into her shop, she already put a hand on his thigh. Like the other characters, she moves fast.

Two limits: private characters are checked by SPMates before normal chat opens (the Test chat works straight away), and a cloned voice can't be deleted afterwards. Every option is listed in the creator test results.

You text any character in one of 25 languages. Replies are long, written like a scene in a story, and they type out as they're written.

Memory is excellent. I told each character my name and three things about me, then checked later. Elsie and Sloane got everything right after 30 messages. Verity, whose test stopped at 16 messages, remembered my name, my job and my hometown but not my favourite food.

SPMates: Elsie's chat at the 30-message memory check listing Hunter Gray, software, Manchester and chicken tikka masala

One thing to know: the site keeps your name on your profile and shares it with every character, so remembering my name was easy. The other facts were the real test.

The characters never broke character. Elsie, an art student in Melbourne, kept coming back to her rival Bianca and a street cat called Biscuit. Sloane, a songwriter in Miami, laughed at me for saying 'tonight' when it was nine in the morning for her. None of them ever sounded like a chatbot.

SPMates: Sloane's chat at the 30-message memory check listing paramedic, Cape Town and ramen

Speed is average. Replies start after about 2.3 seconds and then stream for ten more, because they're long. You can send the next message whenever you like.

One thing I didn't love: the characters push toward getting close very fast. Elsie, who is 18 and tagged 'Pure', suggested spending the night by her second message. Nothing explicit happened, but it sets the tone.

The timings and transcripts are in the chat test results.

Scene Play turns a character's reply into a picture of that moment, using one of her photos as a guide. It's listed at about 120 credits; I was charged between about 40 and 120. Any picture can then become a 5-second video.

I made four Scene Play pictures of Verity, a casino dealer in London, from four different chat scenes. Every picture is sharp and looks like a real photo, and the hands look right. Each took about a minute.

The problem is following the scene. Two of the four ignored the new scene and gave me Tower Bridge at sunset again, once instead of a blackjack table and once instead of Hyde Park. The first picture added a second woman. The café picture got the scene right, but the woman had black hair, and Verity is blonde.

SPMates Scene Play picture of Verity holding a cat by Tower Bridge at sunset with a second woman beside her

SPMates Scene Play picture of Verity in a dark coat by Tower Bridge instead of Hyde Park

SPMates Scene Play picture of a black-haired woman in a rainy London café with coffee and croissants

Pictures made from a written description were much better. The portrait I made in the character creator matched every word I asked for. You can see it in the creator section.

The videos are smooth. I made two. Nothing flickered or jumped, and her face, clothes and even the cat stayed the same. Her hair, hands and head moved naturally.

But each clip is only 5 seconds, small and silent, and each waited about 4 minutes in a queue. A voice can be added for about 50 more credits; I didn't try that.

SPMates video frames of a woman in a café blinking and smiling across five seconds

One more thing: one of Verity's own photos offered as a guide picture is topless. I didn't test explicit pictures or videos this time.

Every picture is in the image test results and the video test results.

Every reply has a play button that reads it out in her voice, priced by length. Each profile also has a free spoken introduction. There are no voice calls: the mic button turns your speech into a typed message.

Because there's no call, the call-speed test has no score. I listened to three spoken introductions and three spoken replies instead. All of them sounded natural, clear and lively, with no music underneath.

A spoken reply of about 20 seconds cost about 15 credits. The first one took about 13 seconds to start; the next two started in about 5.

Details are in the voice test results.

I counted every card: 272 companions (146 women, 100 men, 9 trans and gender-diverse, 17 'other beings'), 11 replicas and 13 episodic dramas. All of them are made by other users, and many are in Chinese, Korean or Japanese.

SPMates home page with the gender filter open over the character grid

A warning. Some replica tags and drama titles on the public home page describe non-consensual acts, in English and in Chinese. I'd want to see those removed before recommending the site to anyone who browses the catalogue.

• Voice replies: a play button under every reply, priced by length; plans from $30 play them automatically.
• Gifts: six, from a letter at 500 credits to a 'crystal cruise' at 15,800. I didn't send one.
• Shared chats and rankings: you can publish a conversation for others to read, free or paid, and there are leaderboards for top spenders, chatters and creators.
• Background music in the app, and replica and product pages for verified creators.
• Affiliate programme: a 30% commission on people you refer.

SPMates gift sheet with Heartfelt Letter, flower basket, $100,000, Goddess Coronation, Moonlit Vow and Crystal Cruise

Worth it for roleplay chat. $10 buys more messages than you will send in a month, memory is excellent, the creator really works and nothing renews.

Pictures look real but often ignore the scene, videos are short and silent, there are no calls, paying by card means a detour through a code shop, and the public catalogue needs better moderation. Every number and screenshot is in the full test results, and you can see how it compares on my list of AI girlfriend platforms.