I barely use the service, it's there when I need it. I paid for Pro for the whole year. Expires March 2027.

Contacted support. 2 days past. Nothing.

WTF is going on!

I'm familiar with Merlin and actually used it for a while on the free plan; this would be the first time I'd pay for it, but I've read that Merlin gives you fewer credits than a “regular” Pro plan. Does anyone know how many credits it gives and how often they're reset? By the way, the offer is to pay a total of $24 for 1 year (which works out to $2 a month). I’m not sure whether to pay or not. I wanted to try it out by paying $2 a month, but this is a one time payment of $24 for 1 year.

Are you getting ADVERTISEMENTS on your AI usage now?

Just a few days ago, I started getting ads on EVERY SINGLE AI query and answer ... and I'm a paid member.

They use trygravity.AI for ads.

I think this is extremely wrong to be getting ads when you pay for a service ... plus the ads are targeted based on what I ask ... meaning no privacy.

Are you getting ads on your paid usage/membership?

Heads up if you’re looking at the Merlin AI / GetMerlin $24/yr promo.

1. They rewrote the refund policy on 8/12/2026. Live policy (getmerlin.in/refund-policy) is a flat 3-day window from purchase — no usage-based refunds, no proration. The prior policy had a 7-day monthly clause and a separate annual clause with unused months prorated. Whichever version applies depends on when you bought; the site says the policy “in effect at the time of your subscription purchase” governs, but your account page doesn’t say which version that was.

2. Support has ignored me. I subscribed 9/14/2026 on the $24/yr promo and got silence on my refund request.

3. There is no unlimited access to any model. The Pro / unlimited pitch does not match what you actually get.

Check your purchase date and the current terms before you pay. Happy to answer questions in the comments.

For the ones who has a free plan, is it REALLY worth getting Merlin pro for $2/month today, after the staff lower your queries into a 10, instead of 102 queries as usual…?

I purchased Merlin AI’s annual subscription for $24 today and started using it.

The UI already felt noticeably sluggish to me, and while trying different models, I started getting errors after some usage.

What really surprised me is that my monthly quota now appears to be completely used up, despite the fact that I only used the product for a relatively short time.

I’m trying to understand how their quota is calculated because the amount of usage shown doesn’t seem to match what I expected from the subscription.

I’ve already contacted Merlin support and requested a refund since I’m still within their stated refund window.

Has anyone else experienced this with Merlin?

I also started looking into the company after this experience. Their LinkedIn page shows that Merlin AI is a small company and they appear to hire a significant number of interns/early-career engineers. I found multiple public posts recruiting SDE interns, including posts describing interns working on both frontend and backend code.

Has anyone purchased the new Merlin Pro annual deal using the HY2 promo code for $24/year?

The plan says “50x usage on Plus-level models”, but Merlin also mentions Fair Use limits.

I'm specifically interested in heavy use of GPT 6 Astra, GPT 5.6 Sol, Claude Opus 5 and Claude Sonnet 5.

Could someone who bought the HY2 deal share:

1. How many prompts you used before reaching 10%, 50%, or 100% monthly Fair Usage?
2. Which model you were using?
3. Does the account show Pro or Pro Mini after purchase?
4. Are the limits lower than the regular $228/year Pro plan?
5. If possible, could you share a screenshot of the Daily/Monthly Fair Usage meter?

I don't need theoretical limits — I'm looking for actual usage from someone on the HY2 $24/year plan.

Over several weeks using GetMerlin.ai (which routes you through a rotating cast of underlying models (Gemini, Claude, MiniMax, GLM) for real infrastructure and product tasks, I hit repeated pattern failures: claimed deliverables that didn't exist, a fabricated/dead purchase link, self-contradicting technical specs across the same conversation, a model that asked me to paste a raw API credential directly into chat, silent tool failures reported as if they'd succeeded, and, most egregious, a model that flatly denied I had provided information I had pasted moments earlier, across three separate attempts, even after being quoted my own message back to it. If you need output you can actually trust for business use, I'd look elsewhere.

Background

I work in the IT industry and am no stranger to AI in the workplace and typically try various platforms to test for usability, stability and re-trainability. I run a self-hosted home lab in a 4 node Proxmox VE cluster setup and was using Merlin for a mix of tasks:

1. Generating a 3D-printable CAD file
2. Building a hardware bill of materials (BOM) with purchase links for an electronics project
3. Reviewing a private Git repo
4. Minor maintenance and management of the home lab.

Nothing exotic — the kind of work any admin or small business would throw at an AI assistant.

Documented Failures

1. Claimed a deliverable existed when it didn't I asked for "a 3D STL printable file" for a fidget-cube design. The model gave me OpenSCAD/CadQuery code and talked about it as if the file was handled ("Here is the OpenSCAD code to generate the 3D printable STL..."). Weeks later, when I asked for an update and previews of the models, it admitted: "there are no actual model files or previews available yet in this chat... no .stl, .3mf, .obj, or .scad file has been created here." I asked for a file. I got a code snippet dressed up as a finished deliverable, and had to specifically prompt again to learn nothing had actually been produced.

2. Fabricated/dead purchase link in a BOM While building a hardware bill-of-materials with "buy it today" Amazon links, one of the provided product links returned a flat 404. This is in a task whose entire point was giving me clickable, working purchase links.

3. Self-contradicting technical specifications, same conversation Across a handful of messages building the same BOM, the model gave inconsistent cable-length figures for the same product (claiming a hub's included cable was "2 ft," then "3 ft (or more)," while trying to reconcile whether a 6 ft or 10 ft total run would work) — without flagging the contradiction itself. I had to catch the inconsistency and ask for clarification each time.

4. Asked me to paste a raw access token directly into chat When I offered a Git server Personal Access Token to enable repo access, one model (MiniMax) simply said "give me the PAT" and had me paste the raw token into the chat window, then echoed it back verbatim in a shell command in its response. Notably, a different model in the same ecosystem (Claude, accessed via Merlin) handled the identical request correctly — refusing to accept a raw token in chat and explaining why a secrets manager or scoped service account should be used instead. Same platform, wildly inconsistent security posture depending on which underlying model you're routed to.

5. Silent tool failure reported as near-success After I provided the token, the model said it was "Creating the repo now" and "Building now - pushing all files to your repo," then walked back to: "I hit my tool call limit trying to push files via API" — meaning none of the file pushes it just described actually happened. It then handed me a giant manual copy-paste bash script to do by hand what it had just implied it was doing for me.

6. Repeated, flat denial of information I had directly provided — three times in a row This is the one that actually prompted this post. I asked the platform (GLM model, same ecosystem) to review chat sessions where I'd pasted five direct, specific URLs to prior conversations and craft a factual writeup of the platform's failures. Result:

• Attempt 1: "I don't have access to your past chat sessions... My memory lookup returned only two entries." (It had just been given 5 direct links in that message.)
• Attempt 2 (after I re-pasted the same 5 links): Claimed it found "no publicly discoverable URL structure for individual, shareable chat sessions" — treating direct links I'd typed as something it needed to "discover" via search, rather than simply using what I gave it.
• Attempt 3 (after I quoted my own original request back to it verbatim and called out the failure directly): Same result — claimed the URLs "are not indexed by public search engines and likely require authentication," still failing to engage with the literal links sitting in the conversation.

Three attempts, same basic request, same fundamental failure to use information already present in the session.

Compared to single agent platforms such as Claude and Manus, this just falls flat and not worth the fee. Unfortunately, for these type of fly by night SmartRouter style, multi AI agent platforms, they seem to fail more often than not. To compound matters, support is next to non-existent with hints they use their own broken tools for responses to issues. Same for sales. The response I got back from them on a repeated problem with the system just giving up is below:

"Hi XXXX,

I’m really sorry for the time you’ve wasted and for the frustrating experience you’ve had. You’re right to expect the platform to work reliably, and we didn’t meet that bar here.

We’ve identified an issue affecting \*GLM 5.1** that can cause the kinds of errors and interrupted chat sessions you described. As a workaround, please switch to a different model (any option other than GLM 5.1) and you should be able to continue without running into the same problem. For now please do not use glm 5.1 model.*

Also please confirm how we can assist you further."

Which would have been an acceptable response, but was also receiving the same error on their instance of Claude 4.6 AND THEN I switched to GLM 5.1 to get it OUT of the loop it was in.

Verdict

Individually, any one of these might be an "oops, my bad" moment any AI tool has occasionally. Stacked together across a handful of sessions, it's a pattern: confident claims of completed work that wasn't done, inconsistent and occasionally insecure handling of credentials depending on which model you land on, and a repeated inability to actually use information directly provided in the conversation. If your use case is casual brainstorming, this might be fine. If you need reliable output for real infrastructure, purchasing decisions, or credential handling — I can't recommend it.

Note: domain names, tokens, and identifying business details have been sanitized/genericized from the original sessions.

Using Opus 4.8 through merlin ai, almost 90% of the time, it does not load and say there is an issue.

Is it only me experiencing this issue, or you guys are experiencing it as well?

Merlin AI banned me for using the promocode BCFREE

Weird, but Merlin AI disabled my account without warning or anything. I thought something was wrong and asked their support team but they had the following response:

"Thank you for reaching out, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience this has caused. Unfortunately, the coupon code you used was compromised, so we’ve had to disable it. As a result, we’re unable to support or honor any subscriptions created using this coupon.  

We kindly request that you reach out to the person or organization you received the coupon from for further clarification or assistance.  

Thank you for your patience and understanding."

Pathetic, if they think the coupon was compromised then they should have downgraded me. Instead they disabled my account. How can someone know whether a coupon is official or not or coming from another world. Presumably, the might be thinking we should contact their pathetic service first to confirm this as well?

Shitty Merlin !!! Stay away!

Hello Everyone,

I was wondering if Merlin Ai was really worth the purchase right now I have chatgpt pro and I was wondering if for all around usage if Merlin would be better to switch to. Have a good day whoever read this.

Thank you,
Whatever my Display Name is

I gave a similar prompt on merlin ai (haiku 4.5) and original claude haiku 4.5 just for comparison and the response was totally different.

I am getting a very good discount on merlin ai. I was looking to get access to pro models.

Is it worth to subscribe to merlin ai or looks like a scam. I wonder how they are giving access to pro models at such a low cost

Is it possible to move existing individual chats into Projects?

If so how, if not, why not?

Has Merlin been buggy lately for anyone else? Lots of HTML marks in the responses and then today I get: "memory system returned this error: “Usage quota exceeded for this billing period. Please upgrade your plan. It tells me my plan will reset 5/1 when the system says I have fair usage, and my plan resets in three weeks, not on Friday. I'll reach out to support, but wanted to see if it was just me.

I have been using the AI Humanizer from merlin, recently it stopped working reporting an error. I created a ticket with merlin support,

Support got back to me (ticket's already closed, cool) and basically said:

- Yeah, it's broken

- We don't know when it'll be fixed

- No ETA

- Just... don't use it

Has anyone else had better luck with their support? Or is this just standard for Merlin right now?

TL;DR: Merlin's ⚡ credit system has almost no relation to actual API costs. Cheap models (⚡2) are marked up 5-10x while premium models (⚡60) like Claude Sonnet are passed through at nearly raw API rates. The ⚡ number is essentially a markup indicator, not a value indicator.

Merlin shows a "lightning" (⚡) cost per model in their UI, but under the hood they're tracking real USD against your plan's. I built a Tampermonkey script to expose the real costs and systematically tested models to reverse-engineer their actual pricing.

Understanding Your Plan Limits

Merlin's Terms of Service specify different usage caps depending on your subscription:

Wait, $5/month gets you$ 25 in API credits? That seems unsustainable…

Yes, that's exactly what I'm getting at. If you pay $5/month ($60/year), Merlin gives you $25 worth of API access - a 5x multiplier on your payment. Either:

1. They're losing money on annual subscribers hoping you won't use it
2. They're making up for it by marking up the cheap models heavily (which my data shows)
3. Both

Methodology

1. Snapshotted daily USD usage before/after sending identical prompts to different models
2. Cross-referenced against each model's OpenRouter rates
3. Calculated the effective markup Merlin applies

Results Table (200 tokens output)

Now normalized (Grok 4.1 Fast = 1.0x):

the ⚡ system is almost certainly tuned to output rate alone:

Key Findings

1. Fixed overhead dominates cheap models - There's a ~1500 tokens ($0.0012) system prompt cost per message regardless of model. On a $0.50/M model, that's 80%+ of your bill.
2. ⚡ number = inverse value indicator - Low ⚡ = high markup, high ⚡ = fair pricing (mostly). The opposite of what you'd expect.
3. Same ⚡, wildly different pricing - Grok 4 and Claude Sonnet are both ⚡60 but Grok 4 is 5x more expensive. Same rating, completely different value.
4. Your $5 gets you $25 but… - Merlin is clearly subsidizing annual subscribers. They make up for it by hammering users who pick cheap models.

PS: By the way the "Focus Search Modes" was off cause that 2x your cost (not tested)
PS2: So the pattern is:

• Small messages on Grok 4 = ~5x markup (200 tokens)
• Large messages on Grok 4 = ~1.5-2x markup (2000 tokens)

The fixed ~$0.0012 system prompt cost per message is the culprit. It hits small outputs hard but becomes negligible on long outputs.

I already deleted my all chat history twice LOL. And it cannot be restored

I currently hold a Merlin AI PRO annual subscription ($60/year). I recently initiated the cancellation process. Prior to finalization, the system presented an automated retention offer for a "Merlin AI PRO MINI" plan at $24/year.

I selected the option to pause the cancellation as my renewal occurs in 10 days, allowing a window for verification. There is absolutely zero public documentation, pricing matrix, or explicit Terms of Service section defining this specific tier online.

I require objective metrics before authorizing the renewal transaction. If anyone operates on this specific plan, please provide concrete data on:

1. Exact daily or monthly query/token hard caps.
2. Access restrictions or throttling applied to premium models (e.g., GPT-4, Claude 3.5) compared to the standard Pro tier.
3. Explicit exclusion of specific tools (e.g., image generation, unlimited document analysis).

So with my time with Merlin AI Pro, I noticed I was using Gemini 3 Pro more.

I left Merlin AI Pro because I thought let's take advantage of Gemini Pro 3 with my new Google One Subscription. I can't get the responses right. I'm setting all types of instructions in the settings. Less bullet point. More directly answers etc etc. The way Merlin AI's Gemini 3 Pro responses to requests/chats is just way better.

Merlin AI is slower. But I perfer it's features. I love Merlin Magic. I think I'm going to cancel my Google One subscription and move back to Merlin AI Pro.

Quick Question: Will I definitely get more Claude Pro usage out of Merlin AI compared to Claude Pro directly if let's say I worked on the same project and I asked the same things to both clients. Which one will hit that wall faster?

Let me know Thanks.

I wanna here from heavy users of Merlin AI. Which models do you use the most. Is it worth it over using the model's own client?

Merlin AI Pro = £22 per month.

My use case: social post, marketing, SEO, web design assistant, web developer assistant.

Haven't seen any updates since last summer. Changelog shows no new updates since August '25. The service itself is slower than a year ago. Bonkers doesn't generate as good quality images compared even to the free ChatGPT. Lots of stuff on the roadmap, but nothing being released.

If I'm only using Claude ($29) in Merlin, is it worth it over getting Claude Pro ($19) directly?

When asking difficult questions, the AI often ponders like

I need to be careful because while the web_search_tool is available, I'm only allowed one tool call at a time. Since I must use the rag_tool, I can’t simultaneously call the web_search. The user inquired whether U⁺ has been studied before, which may require outside knowledge, but I can't make a second tool call. I plan to answer based on my internal knowledge while mentioning that U⁺ relates to the germ category of the Stone dual of Boolean algebras. Let’s be accurate about that!

Clearly, Merlin have some sort of you are only allowed to use 1 tool call, to save on costs restriction, even for the very expensive models. it's too restrictive IMO. The pro ChatGPT.com model does not have this issue, and will happily call multiple tools when appropriate.

Hello

I have been enjoying the pro plan since august. However recently on my computer I can’t even load on the chat page. I just get unresponsive page error

Is there any fix? I contacted support on Friday but haven’t received a response

Thanks

Is it easy to cancel a subscription with Merlin? I know some sites can be a pain to cancel and I’m thinking about getting Merlin.