KudoNovel, the browser-based app for writing long-form fiction with AI, today launches KudoAI: an AI built straight into the app and paid for with simple prepaid credits. Until now, using KudoNovel meant bringing your own AI: opening an account with an AI provider, finding an API key, and pasting it in. KudoAI removes that step entirely. New writers sign up, receive a free credit, and can start writing straight away.
The launch arrives with a full refresh of the app. A new design, Night Draft, turns KudoNovel into a calmer, darker writing room. Settings, the story bible and the project library now open as full pages instead of cramped side panels. Every project saves continuously to the writer's account, stored in the EU, and is there on any device they sign in from.
Sign up, get a free credit, and write. No keys, no model menus, no subscription.
How KudoNovel works
Writers draft a scene as rough beats, then shape each one with AI. Rewrite reworks a beat in the writer's voice: it can stick close to the draft, keep it short, or open it out into full novel prose. Expand adds sensory detail and interiority, and Split breaks a beat that has grown past a single moment. When a beat is right, Commit locks it into the manuscript and stitches it onto the prose before it.
A story bible keeps characters, places and threads consistent, and the AI reads it when it generates the next beat. When a writer gets stuck, the story chat lets them talk the problem through with an AI that has read the whole story. It can suggest the next beats, but nothing gets written until the writer says so. Writers who use Claude can also connect it to their KudoNovel account and work on their books from there.
Pricing
KudoAI runs on prepaid credits, with no subscription. Every new account gets one free credit, enough to try Rewrite, the story chat and the rest. After that, writers buy a pack once, when they need one: 100 credits for $3.50 (roughly a short novel), 500 for $7.50 (a full book) or 1,000 for $12.50 (a polished, well-revised book). Each request spends only what it actually uses. Payments are handled by Stripe.
Privacy
KudoNovel doesn't keep writers' prompts or the AI's replies: it records only how many credits each request used. Purchased credits run only on AI providers that keep no copy of the prompts and don't train on them. Manuscripts are stored in the EU, are never used to train AI and never sold, and can be deleted from inside the app at any time. KudoNovel adds no content filters of its own: romance, horror, the dark and the explicit are all welcome, within its terms.
Availability
KudoNovel is available now at kudowrite.com and runs in any modern browser, on desktop and on mobile. Signing up is free and includes one KudoAI credit.
