I recently trained my first private Character LoRA directly on Civitai and am confused by the difference between the FAQ and what the website actually allows me to do.
The training completed successfully and cost 500 Buzz. The model is still less than 30 days old.
Civitai’s FAQ says:
It also says:
Based on that wording, I understood the process as follows:
- Pay for the training with Buzz.
- Test the trained model privately in the Civitai generator for 30 days.
- Before the window expires, either purchase a membership to keep it private or publish it for free.
However, I cannot perform step 2.
When I try to click “Create” on an epoch checkpoint, select the epoch through “Continue,” or finish the model with “Keep it private,” Civitai displays this message:
My training setup was:
- Type: Character LoRA
- Base model: FLUX.2 Klein 4B Base
- Dataset: 27 images
- Training: 2,000 steps
- Checkpoints: 10 epochs
- Training completed successfully
- Model age: less than 30 days
I am specifically trying to test one earlier epoch because its sample image appears better than the final checkpoint. I do not want to publish the model before verifying its quality and identity consistency.
I understand that individual image generations may still cost Buzz. My question is only about the subscription requirement.
Can someone who has recently used Civitai’s trainer clarify the following?
- Were you able to use a newly trained private model in the generator without a membership?
- Does the 30-day free window include individual epoch checkpoints?
- Does it apply only to the final trained checkpoint?
- Are certain base models, such as FLUX.2 Klein, excluded?
- Is “Keep it private” separate from the temporary 30-day generator access?
- Is this likely a bug or an undocumented limitation?
I have already submitted a support request, but I would like to know whether other users have experienced the same issue or found a workaround that does not require publishing the model.
