How IMVU Works

You can do all kinds of things in IMVU using the free options, but you might get a little envious of everybody else's beautiful avatars, cool actions and amazing rooms. While chatting through IMVU is free, it's more enjoyable if you spend money. Some things require spending actual money, while others require you to purchase credits, which function as IMVU's virtual currency. There are three different types of credits: regular, promo and dev.

Regular credits are purchased in increments of 5,000, starting with 5,000 for $5. There is a discount that kicks in at 15,000 credits and increases incrementally the more credits that you buy. For example, 50,000 credits cost $44.95 and 300,000 credits cost $200. These credits can be used to buy clothes, accessories, facial features, rooms, furniture and music. In addition to buying them in the IMVU Web site, you can buy currency cards at Best Buy and other stores.

Promo credits work much like regular credits, with a few exceptions. You can't use them to buy gifts for other people and you don't buy them, you earn them. Otherwise, they spend exactly like regular credits. When you register for IMVU, you receive 1,000 promo credits for creating your avatar and going through the tutorial. You can also get promo credits by checking out new products, getting referrals from friends, spinning a prize wheel each day or signing up for offers with IMVU's partners, such as becoming a new Netflix or DirectTV subscriber.

Finally, there are dev credits, or content developer credits. These are actually tokens earned by content developers when someone uses promo credits to buy an item that they have created. Ten tokens equals one regular credit. Along the same lines, content developers earn regular credits when their items are purchased with regular credits.

Now that you know what you need to purchase items in IMVU's catalog, let's take a closer look at what's for sale.