Built by students.
For every learner.
LumiChats started with a simple frustration: paying $20/month for AI you only use during exam week and hackathons. Today it's a full AI platform — 40+ models, Study Mode, Agent Mode, and a free AI Glossary — used by students and developers across 44 countries who refuse to pay for days they don't use.
Where it started
In 2025, Aditya Kumar Jha — an engineering student and relentless hackathon participant — was juggling ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro subscriptions simultaneously. Between exams, hackathons, and project sprints, he and his friends kept running into the same complaint: each AI was great at something different. ChatGPT for one thing, Claude for another. Why wasn't there one place to access all of them?
The combined cost of multiple AI subscriptions was well over $40/month — but real, intensive usage happened in bursts of 8–12 days. The rest was waste. And when he talked to friends, classmates, and developers online, everyone had the exact same experience: paying for 30 days, actually using 10.
So Aditya started building a personal AI agent for himself — something that brought every model under one roof, with a pricing model that actually made sense. After months of quietly refining it, he decided to make it public. LumiChats officially launched in January 2026 via Product Hunt, and it's been growing every day since.
From frustration to platform
Every entry in this timeline is something that actually shipped.
A personal frustration becomes a mission
Aditya — juggling ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro subscriptions — notices the pattern: heavy use during exams and hackathons, then weeks of barely opening the app. Paying $20/month each for tools you need 8–12 days felt wrong. He starts building a personal AI agent for himself.
LumiChats launches on Product Hunt
After seven months of building and testing with a small group, LumiChats officially launches publicly via Product Hunt. The pay-per-day model — under $1 per active day — goes live with Study Mode, multiple AI models, and a free glossary for students built in from day one.
4,000+ users across 44 countries
Organic search traffic climbs entirely through SEO — no paid ads. Students and developers across 44 countries discover LumiChats. The free AI Glossary and daily blog content drive discovery, with 75–80% of visitors arriving through search.
Agent Mode & 40+ models
Agent Mode ships — a full browser-based code execution sandbox powered by WebContainer. The model roster expands to 40+ including Claude, GPT-4, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Qwen. Everything in one tab.
Hundreds of blog posts · hundreds of glossary terms
The AI Glossary grows across structured learning tracks covering AI, ML, and developer topics. The blog publishes 5–10 posts daily. Every post and term is free — built so anyone can understand AI, not just people who can pay for it.
Hardened against coordinated bot attacks
Three waves of coordinated bot traffic target the site — timed, ironically, right after LumiChats announced crossing 4,000 users on Instagram. Rate limiting, bot detection, traffic filtering, and anomaly alerts are deployed. User data was never compromised. The platform came out more resilient.
Still building, every single day
Glossary term pages overhauled with mobile navigation, visual track progress, and multi-platform sharing. Inline AI term linking added across all blog posts. The mission is unchanged: make powerful AI accessible to every learner, everywhere — without the subscription trap.
The problem everyone had but nobody solved
Monthly AI subscriptions charge you for 30 days whether you open the app once or 100 times. ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, Google AI Pro — each one costs around $20/month. Most people use them intensively for 8–12 days during exams, hackathons, or project sprints. That means 60–70% of every payment is wasted.
Pay-per-day — the obvious fix
LumiChats charges under $1 per active day. You activate the day when you need it. Don't open it tomorrow? $0 tomorrow. Use it 10 days this month? Less than $10 total — compared to $60+ for three monthly subscriptions. Heavy user? The unlimited plan is under $15/month, still less than any single premium subscription. Not ready to activate? The free tier gives you 5 messages every 24 hours to explore the platform at no cost.
What we've built
Every feature below exists because a student or developer asked for it directly.
Study Mode
Page-locked answers from your PDFs. Every response cites the exact page. Zero hallucinations.
Quiz Generation
Quizzes locked to specific page ranges. Focused exam prep with no chapter confusion.
Note Generation
Turn conversations and documents into structured, organized notes instantly.
5M+ Tokens/Day
Soft cap of 5M tokens — but we don't cut you off mid-task. We want your work finished.
Agent Mode
Full browser-based code execution via WebContainer. Build, debug, and run — no local setup needed.
40+ Premium Models
Claude, GPT-4, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen — switch in one click, all in one tab.
AI Glossary
Hundreds of terms across structured learning tracks. Free, always. Built to teach.
Memory
LumiChats remembers your context, preferences, and files across sessions.
Who we are
Aditya Kumar Jha
Engineer, product builder, and published author. Built LumiChats entirely from scratch — backend, AI pipeline, infrastructure, and growth. Has shipped multiple products recognized globally on Product Hunt, and is the author of Second Chances and Civic Sense, among other works.
Product, engineering, and content strategy.
Shikhar Burman
Engineer and technical co-founder who shapes the platform's architecture and development. Brings depth to core systems and drives LumiChats' technical direction as it scales globally.
Engineering, infrastructure, and technical architecture.
"Students don't have money to waste. They shouldn't have to pay for 30 days just to use AI for 10. That's why we built LumiChats — and why we publish free content every single day. Powerful AI shouldn't require a subscription you can't afford."
— Aditya Kumar Jha, Founder
Core values
Principles that drive every product decision we make.
User-Centric
Every feature is built from real student feedback. We ship what people actually need, not what looks good in a demo.
Transparent Pricing
Under $1 per active day. No subscriptions forced on you. No hidden charges. You know exactly what you're paying before you pay.
Access Over Revenue
The Glossary is free forever. The blog is free forever. We'd rather have thousands of people learning than a smaller group paying for content.
Built for Everyone
We started as students building for students. Now we're building for learners, developers, and creators across 44 countries. Accessible pricing, global ambition.
No Waste
We built pay-per-day because we personally hated wasting money. Every pricing decision we make passes the same test: would we pay this ourselves?
Shipped Fast
We move daily. The changelog isn't marketing — it's a literal record of what we fix, ship, and improve.
Our mission
To make powerful AI accessible to every student and developer — without forcing them into expensive subscriptions for days they don't need. Every feature we build, every pricing decision we make, and every line of content we publish is measured against one question:
The AI Glossary is free because knowledge shouldn't be paywalled. The blog publishes 5–10 posts daily because understanding AI is a prerequisite to using it well. The pay-per-day model exists because the tool should serve you — not the other way around. We started as students. We build for learners everywhere.
Ready to only pay for what you use?
Start free today — 5 messages every 24 hours, no credit card required. Activate your first day when you're ready — and only then.
Questions? We reply to every email — usually within a few hours. lumichats@gmail.com