How to use Janitor AI (and why it goes down)

How to use Janitor AI: pick a card, talk, stop. The app is 18+ uncensored character roleplay. It is not a girlfriend studio. It is not a photo mill. People search “is Janitor AI down” when the free model queues, when a proxy key dies, or when they hit a real outage. Those are three different nights.

Let’s keep it simple. Use free JLLM first. Pay Janitor+ only if the window feels small. Bring a proxy only if you already know you want another model. Full stop.

The product page is Janitor AI. This is the how-to. Not a second review. For the three-way vs CrushOn and SpicyChat, see Janitor AI vs SpicyChat vs CrushOn.

Read this first

• Open janitorai.com. Make an 18+ account. Pick a card, or write one.
• Chat on JLLM. Free chats stay free. About 50 messages a day. About 9k context.
• Janitor+ is $12.99 a month for 5× context. A $10 credit pack is one-time.
• A proxy points the same card at another model. That bill is separate. Skip it on night one.
• “Down” is usually a JLLM queue or a key error. Check their changelog before you panic.
• The card photo cannot be NSFW. Their creation guide says so. The chat can still be uncensored.

What this guide covers

• The four steps that actually matter.
• What JLLM, Janitor+, and a proxy each buy.
• Why it feels down when the site is still up.
• When to leave Janitor for CrushOn, SpicyChat, or a girlfriend app.

At a glance

If this happens	What it is	What to do
Cards load. Replies crawl.	JLLM is busy, or you hit the daily cap	Wait, or spend a $10 credit pack, or bring a proxy
Cards load. Red proxy error.	Your key, URL, or that model’s bill	Fix the key. Do not assume Janitor is dead
The whole page fails.	A real outage, often short	Check janitorai.com/news. Then wait
The bot forgets the plot.	9k context on free. Thin JLLM	Janitor+ is 5×. Or a better model via proxy
You wanted nudes of one girl.	Wrong product	Open Candy AI, not Janitor+

Four steps. Then stop.

Official help lives at help.janitorai.com. We are not replacing it. We are telling you which buttons matter so you do not drown in proxy threads.

1. Make an 18+ account

Go to janitorai.com. Sign up. You must be an adult. Adult cards only. No minors. If that was not the plan, leave.

This is a browser café. There is no official iPhone or Android store app we list. If you wanted a phone mall, that is Polybuzz, and that mall is filtered.

2. Pick a card, or write one

The board is the product. Tags. Lorebooks. Community bots. Quality is mixed. A popular card is not a good card. Open a few. Delete the ones that ramble.

If you write your own, their creation guide is the rulebook. The bot image is required. NSFW images are not permitted on that thumbnail. The chat can still go uncensored. The card photo cannot. Don’t fight that. Use a SFW face and put the heat in the thread.

Lorebooks inject extra text when a keyword fires. Assign the book to the character. Test it. If it never fires, raise the probability and check the keys. Their scripts panel is where that lives. We are not going to paste a six-page lore tutorial. The help category covers it.

3. Talk on free JLLM

JLLM is Janitor’s own model. Click into a chat and talk. Free chats stay free. You get about 50 JLLM messages a day until credits. Context on free is about 9k.

That is enough for a scene. It is not enough for a novel. If the bot repeats a phrase, swipe. If it forgets the room, remind it in one short line. Don’t write a speech.

A $10 credit pack is one-time. It raises the free-model cap toward 1,000 a day. Buy that before you buy a proxy hobby.

4. Pay or proxy only if you need it

Janitor+ is $12.99 a month. You get 5× context, priority routing, and better swipes. Payments go through Stripe. It is still not a photo girlfriend. People buy plus thinking they bought Candy nudes. They did not.

A proxy is a middleman. You leave JLLM. You point Janitor at another model through a key. OpenRouter. DeepSeek. Others. That bill is separate. We’ve seen DeepSeek from about $2 to $5. The key is a password. Don’t paste it in a Discord screenshot.

How to add one: open a chat. Hit the purple Janitor / using-model button. Pick Proxy. Click + New. Paste the model name, the URL from that provider, and the key. Save. Refresh. Their help page is “The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Using a Proxy.” Use that. Proxy URLs go stale.

Skip the proxy on night one. If you came here because Reddit said “you must proxy,” you already made it a hobby. Talk first.

Why it feels down

People type “Janitor AI down,” “is Janitor AI down,” and “Janitor AI reddit” on the same night. The café is often up. The brain is busy.

JLLM is busy

The free model queues. You wait. You hit the daily cap. The page of cards still loads. That is not down. That is a cap. Wait, swipe, or spend the $10 pack. Janitor+ helps routing. It does not magic infinite JLLM.

Their own changelog has posted short JLLM outages. One was about 15 minutes from a bad deploy. They said sorry. That is a real down. It is also rare compared to “it feels slow tonight.”

Your proxy key

If you brought a model, the error is often yours. 401 means the key is wrong. 402 means you are out of credit on that provider. 429 means you are rate limited. 502 or 503 means that provider is having a night.

Fix the key. Check the bill on OpenRouter or DeepSeek. Don’t tweet that Janitor died. The café passed you to another company, and that company said no.

A real outage

Sometimes the whole page fails. Cloudflare. A bad deploy. Proxy settings they had to patch. They post it on janitorai.com/news and the changelog. Check that before you delete your chats.

We do not run a live status light on XXXFuel. Open the site. If cards load, start there. If they don’t, wait. Most of these nights last minutes, not a week.

What Janitor is not

It is not Candy. No Shorts. No photoreal girlfriend OS. No voice call we list. Images are not the stack.

It is not SpicyChat. There is no Semantic Memory 2.0 ladder at $19.95. Memory follows the model you point at.

It is not CrushOn. Cards here do not pay you a still as the product. Credits on CrushOn buy replies and pictures. Janitor credits bump JLLM.

It is not Polybuzz. No store app. No webtoons. No public NSFW ban, because this café is uncensored on purpose. Phone mall vs this café: Polybuzz vs SpicyChat vs CrushOn.

When to leave

Stay on Janitor if you want free uncensored cards and you will live in a browser.

Leave for CrushOn if you want stills on the card. Standard is $4.90 a month on a year ($58.88).

Leave for SpicyChat if you want a named persona and memory that grows as you pay. True Supporter is $19.95 for new signups.

Leave for a girlfriend year if you wanted a person who stays. Candy, OurDream, GirlfriendGPT, GoLove. The scene vs the habit is NSFW AI chat vs a girlfriend year.

How to use those four is a different job. Full list: best AI girlfriend apps in 2026.

The catch

Janitor oversells unlimited filth and undersells the hobby. Free is real. Long and good is a key, a plus plan, or patience.

Reddit oversells proxies. You do not need one to send the first message. You need one when JLLM feels thin.

“Down” oversells death. Most nights the café is open and the free brain is tired.

18+. Adult cards only. No minors. Don’t paste a real person into a sex-chat card they did not agree to. Don’t share your API key. Treat it like a password.

What XXXFuel would actually do

Night one: open Janitor. Pick two cards. Talk on JLLM. Don’t touch proxy settings.

If the cap bites: $10 credits, or wait until tomorrow.

If the window feels small and you will live here: Janitor+ at $12.99.

If the writing feels thin: then a proxy, using Janitor’s own proxy walkthrough, not a random Discord paste.

If you wanted pictures: CrushOn. If you wanted a plot that lasts: SpicyChat True Supporter. If you wanted a girlfriend: Candy.

Final verdict

Use Janitor as a free card café. Talk first. Pay or proxy only if the night needs it. When it “goes down,” check whether the cards still load. If they do, the café is up and the brain is busy. XXXFuel would not buy plus for a photo it will never send. We also would not live in a proxy form on night one.

FAQ
Common questions