Poe
B Tier · 7.5/10
One subscription, every major AI model -- Quora's multi-model chatbot lets you switch between GPT-4, Claude, and more
Score Breakdown
Personality & Tone
The multi-model switchboard
Tone: Whichever personality you picked. Poe is a router, not a model -- the voice depends on which bot you are chatting with (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Llama, or community-built bots).
Quirks: Usefulness comes from mid-conversation model-switching and side-by-side chats. Community bots add wildly different personalities, including less-filtered fine-tunes. The platform itself is neutral UX, not a persona.
The Good and the Bad
What we like
- +Access to GPT-4, Claude, Gemini, Llama, and others all in one place -- great for comparing responses side by side
- +Custom bot builder lets you create specialized AI assistants with system prompts and specific model configs
- +One subscription is cheaper than paying for ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro separately if you use both regularly
- +Clean, fast interface that works well on mobile -- the app is actually pleasant to use unlike some AI chat apps
What could be better
- −Message limits on premium models are tighter than subscribing to those models directly -- you get less GPT-4 usage than ChatGPT Plus
- −You're always one step removed from the source -- new features hit ChatGPT and Claude before they reach Poe
- −Custom bots are neat but limited -- you can't do anything close to what OpenAI's GPTs or Claude's Projects offer
- −The free tier is very restrictive, you'll hit the daily limit within a few conversations
Pricing
Free
- ✓Limited daily messages
- ✓Access to basic models
- ✓Custom bot creation
Poe Subscriber
- ✓GPT-4, Claude 3.5, Gemini Pro
- ✓Higher message limits
- ✓Image generation
- ✓Priority access
Annual
- ✓Same as monthly
- ✓2 months free
Known Issues
- MODEL LINEUP AND PRICING BOTH REFRESHED -- OUR COPY WAS TWO MODEL GENERATIONS STALE (checked 2026-08-03, vendor pages): Poe's own site now fronts, verbatim, '**GPT-5.6-Sol, Claude-Opus-5, Claude-Fable-5, Claude-Sonnet-5, Kimi-K3**, and thousands of others', with Poe's blog citing **200+** text, image, video and audio models. The pricing model is the part most people get wrong: **Poe bills in shared POINTS, not messages.** Every bot draws from one balance at its own per-bot rate (shown via a 'Rates' button in each chat), and Poe quotes pre-purchase at **$30 per 1M points**. Free users get a daily allowance that **resets every 24 hours and does not roll over**. The practical consequence: your effective message cap depends entirely on which models you pick -- a day of Opus 5 and a day of a cheap open-weights bot are not remotely the same allowance. Poe also now sells a **$4.99/mo Basic** tier ($49.99/yr) below the $19.99 Plus tier ($199.99/yr), so the old 'Poe is $20 or nothing' framing is out of date. NOT SHIPPED FOR LACK OF A SOURCE: a widely-repeated claim that Quora cut the Poe subsidy on 2026-04-20 could not be confirmed against any primary source this sweep (Poe's blog has no post after 2025-11-21 and the help centre says nothing) -- deliberately omitted rather than repeatedSource: poe.com and poe.com/about (fetched 2026-08-03), Poe help centre (help.poe.com -- Poe FAQs and Poe Purchases FAQs), Apple App Store listing (Quora, Inc.) · 2026-08-03
- Premium model quotas reset at inconsistent times, and usage tracking in the UI doesn't always match actual remaining messagesSource: Reddit r/Poe · 2026-03
- Some custom bots break when underlying models are updated, requiring manual system prompt adjustmentsSource: Poe Community · 2026-02
Best for
AI power users who want to try multiple models without managing separate subscriptions for each one.
Not for
Anyone who primarily uses one model -- just subscribe to that model's native platform for better limits and features.
Our Verdict
Poe's value proposition is simple: pay one price, get access to all the major AI models. And for people who regularly switch between GPT-4 and Claude depending on the task, it actually makes financial sense. The interface is clean and the custom bot feature is a nice bonus. But you're always getting a slightly diminished version of each model -- fewer messages, delayed feature rollouts, and less integration depth. If you're a model-hopper who likes variety, Poe is great. If you have a favorite model, subscribe to it directly.
Sources
- Poe official site (accessed 2026-03-27)
- Reddit r/Poe (accessed 2026-03-27)
- Poe Community (accessed 2026-03-27)
Explore more Poe rankings
Deeper leaderboards, benchmarks, task-specific tier lists, and status/pricing pages for Poe.
The Tier List Tuesday
Weekly newsletter: tier movers, new entrants, and the VS of the week. Built from our daily AI-tool sweeps. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Alternatives to Poe
ChatGPT
**ChatGPT for Word arrived 2026-09-17 on every plan including Free** (Word joins Excel and PowerPoint in the same Microsoft add-in, drawing on the shared Codex usage allowance), plugins can now hold multiple accounts, and on 2026-09-21 Finances gained **Experian credit-score tracking** (Plus/Pro, US) plus a Privacy Center for Free/Go/Plus/Pro. **Astra for Law launched 2026-09-17** -- GPT-6 Astra configured for legal work with a 230M-URL legal search index and 26 partner-built legal plugins, offered first to selected law firms through Trusted Access in ChatGPT and Codex as 'GPT-6 Astra Law' (API id gpt-6-astra-law 'coming soon', no price published). **ChatGPT Images 2.5 shipped 2026-09-08** to every tier (Sketch, templates, up to 50% lower latency; API twins GPT-Image-2.5 Flare and Sunburst at the same $8/$30 per 1M as gpt-image-2), and on 2026-09-16 OpenAI began testing **Sponsored Agents** inside ChatGPT Ads with HubSpot and Shopify integrations, published a **misalignment-reporting framework** with six incident reports, and shipped usage and outcome analytics for ChatGPT Work and Codex admins. The chatbot that started the AI revolution. **GPT-6 Astra launched 2026-09-03** -- OpenAI's new flagship at $10/$50 per 1M (long-context $20/$75, Fast mode 2x, no Fast mode under EU data residency), rolling out to Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise within existing allowances, and the **first model OpenAI has ever designated Critical for cyber capability**. Enterprise access is off by default at launch. On 2026-08-06 the free tier changed materially: GPT-5.6 Luna becomes the default for Free and Go users with UNLIMITED text chats and a new Think button, while Plus/Pro get a retuned GPT-5.6 Sol in Chat plus an effort slider. GPT-5.6 went GA 2026-07-09 (Sol $5/$30 per 1M) and OpenAI CUT Luna 80% to $0.20/$1.20 and Terra 20% to $2/$12 on 2026-07-30. On 2026-08-13 OpenAI previewed **Ultrafast**, a Cerebras-powered API tier running GPT-5.6 Sol up to 14x faster (750 output tok/s) -- waitlisted, capacity-limited, and with no pricing published. Also now: Health in ChatGPT (7/23, US) and the ChatGPT Work agent (7/9)
Perplexity AI
**Perplexity disclosed on 2026-09-21 that Computer sessions are served by GLM 5.2** (Z.ai's open-weight model) and that it post-trains its own checkpoints on real user sessions -- the trained model becomes a model option in Computer, and the latest checkpoint cut live tool-call failures 21.2% relative. **Computer gained effort controls on 2026-09-17** (a Light/Standard/High/Ultra slider that picks the model and reasoning level, web first), and **HP began pre-loading the Perplexity Windows app on 2026-09-15** starting with the ZBook Ultra G3a. **Portable Computer -- the local, on-device version of Perplexity Computer -- reached Windows on 2026-09-14** for GeForce RTX / RTX PRO GPUs with 24GB+ VRAM, running a Qwen 3.8 27B post-trained for Computer, with locally completed work not consuming Computer credits (confirmed in Perplexity's own post: Pro and Max on individual and enterprise plans; the Qwen 3.8 27B model name is NVIDIA's statement). AI-powered search engine that gives cited answers instead of a list of links. **Hybrid Compute on Mac shipped 2026-09-01**: Perplexity Computer now splits a single task between cloud frontier models and a compact local model running on the Mac, with an on-device privacy gate that can mask, withhold, refuse or ask for consent before anything leaves the machine
Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft's answer to ChatGPT -- free GPT-4 access with Bing search built in, but it feels like a corporate product
Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)
Google's free research assistant that turns your documents into an AI you can query -- and a podcast you can listen to. **Renamed from NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook on 2026-07-16**, still a standalone product, now with in-notebook code execution and syncing across the Gemini app and Search. **Expert Intelligence (2026-08-27) makes purchased Play Books ebooks a first-class source**; compute-weighted usage limits took effect 2026-09-02 -- they refresh every 5 hours **but sit under an undisclosed weekly cap**, with AI Plus at 2x standard, AI Pro 4x and AI Ultra 5x or 20x above Pro (Google's help pages still read prospectively and still publish the old daily table -- no delay announced)
Alexa+
Amazon's reborn consumer AI assistant -- rolls out to every Alexa device with memory, multi-turn agent tasks, and Fire TV navigation
Character.AI
AI-character roleplay chat platform -- once 200M+ monthly visitors, now in a prolonged user exodus after the 2026-02-18 'Moderatedpocalypse' mass-delete and escalating TRAIGA-compliance restrictions. The alternatives market (Janitor AI, Chai, DreamGen) is now the real story
Siri AI (Apple)
Apple's ground-up Siri rebuild, unveiled at WWDC 2026 (June 8) -- conversational, on-screen aware, searches your personal data across apps, gets its own app with synced history. Built on Apple Foundation Models developed in collaboration with Google's Gemini. Developer betas now; public beta in July; ships this fall with iOS 27. Not in the EU (iPhone/iPad) or China at launch.