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How Poe Is Aggregating Every Major LLM—And Monetizing All of Them
Poe by Quora has become the go-to interface for GPT‐4, Claude, Gemini, and more. Here's how it evolved into a consumer AI layer—and what its monetization strategy looks like.
Marco Fazio
April 22, 2025
AI Breakdowns: Poe
How Poe Is Aggregating Every Major LLM—And Monetizing All of Them
In early 2023, Quora quietly launched Poe—a chatbot platform that lets users talk to a variety of AI models in one place. While most consumers only knew ChatGPT, Poe offered a wider menu: Claude, GPT-4, Gemini, Mistral, and dozens of custom bots.
Within a year, Poe became one of the most downloaded AI apps on iOS and a fast-growing desktop product. By 2025, it had launched a creator economy for bots, a per-message monetization model, and an infrastructure layer that works across nearly all major LLM APIs.
Here’s how Poe became the front-end for the entire LLM industry.
Chapter 1: Poe’s Origin Inside Quora
Poe stands for "Platform for Open Exploration" and was launched by Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, who also sits on OpenAI’s board.
Quora’s original mission—organizing the world’s knowledge through human Q&A—faced existential risk when LLMs arrived. Poe was a pivot:
“If people want answers, let’s give them a better interface to every AI model available.”
It started as an invite-only app with:
GPT‑3.5 and Claude 1
Simple UX: one message box, multiple model choices
History, prompt memory, and multi-turn chat
No-code bot creation using prompts and personalities
Chapter 2: Multi-Model Access in One Interface
Unlike other tools that tied users to a single provider (e.g. ChatGPT to OpenAI), Poe aggregated them:
GPT‑4 and GPT‑4o
Claude 3.5
Gemini 1.5
Mistral and Mixtral
Meta Llama 3
Perplexity integration
Each model had:
Speed and usage stats
Token and context size comparisons
Unique behavior in summaries, tone, formatting
Poe became the fastest way to test and compare LLMs in real time—no API keys needed.
Chapter 3: Creator Bots and Per-Message Monetization
In mid-2023, Poe added the ability to:
Create a bot using a simple text prompt
Set its behavior, tone, and model
Share it via custom links
Monetize usage via a pay-per-message structure
Users could tip or pay to unlock premium bots (e.g., résumé reviewers, legal agents, crypto trading assistants). Creators earned a share of revenue based on message volume.
By 2024:
Thousands of bots existed
Some creators made $1,000+ per month
Poe became a discovery platform for specialized AI tools without needing a website or API access
Chapter 4: Business Model and Premium Plans
Poe monetizes through:
Poe Pro ($19.99/month) for access to GPT‑4, Claude 3.5, and Gemini
Per-message charges for creators
Potential B2B embedding or licensing in the future
Unlike OpenAI, Poe does not train its own models. It acts as:
An interface (UX, memory, chat structure)
An orchestrator (routing queries to providers)
A marketplace (bot discovery and monetization)
This model gives it flexibility—and avoids the cost of building foundation models.
Chapter 5: Why It Worked
First mover in multi-model access
Consumer-grade UX with fast load, mobile-first, low friction
Creator economy layer instead of pure API business
Piggybacked on every LLM’s marketing (Claude, GPT, Gemini)
Turned LLM testing into a habit with history, favorites, saved bots
What You Can Learn
Aggregators win when switching costs are high (API keys, tokens, auth)
The LLM space needs not just models—but better UX for accessing them
Monetization via creators adds network effects and lock-in
Simplicity still beats power in most consumer interfaces
Marco Fazio Editor,
Latestly AI,
Forbes 30 Under 30
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