What does an AI image generator really cost per image?
Eight AI image generators priced by how many images you make a month. Some sell credits, one sells GPU minutes, one is unlimited on its standard model, and two are pay-as-you-go APIs, so the cheapest changes with volume. Who owns the images, and who can see them, changes too.
Last checked: 7 Nov 2026 · every price read off the vendor's own page or help centre, monthly billing · no affiliate links
Jump to: the short answer · rights and privacy · how each tool counts an image
The short answer
What an image really costs depends on how it's counted. Adobe Firefly's standard model is unlimited on every paid plan, so Firefly Standard is £9.98 a month (including VAT) at any volume. The two APIs, Stability AI and OpenAI, are cheapest at small volumes, but they are pay-as-you-go API credit that needs code or another app. Midjourney bills GPU minutes, and one prompt makes a set of 4 images.
Cheapest at 50 images: the APIs, Stability AI at $1.50 (about £1.12) and OpenAI at $2.17 (about £1.62). Of the apps, Midjourney Basic is cheapest at $10 (about £7.47).
Cheapest at 500: Midjourney Basic, $10 (about £7.47), then Recraft Basic at $12 (about £8.97), whose 1,000 credits exactly cover 500 images, and Firefly Standard at £9.98.
At 2,000 images the flat or slow-queue plans win: Firefly Standard £9.98, Ideogram Plus $20 (about £14.94) and Midjourney Standard $30 (about £22.41), against Recraft $40, Stability $60 and $86.94 (about £64.95) on OpenAI's API.
"Unlimited" usually means slower. Midjourney's Relax mode waits 0-30 minutes, Ideogram moves you to a slower queue once its credits run out, and Magnific's unlimited runs one at a time after the plan's priority usage. Firefly's unlimited has guardrails against scripting, account sharing and reselling.
Credits per image swing by model. On Recraft, V4.1 Flash is 1 credit an image and V4.1 Pro 10; on Stability, Core is 3 and Ultra 8; on Magnific, Nano Banana 2 at 1K is 75. The figures here use one stated model per tool.
Canva counts uses, not images. Pro's "up to 200 uses" a month is shared with its other AI tools, and counting one use as one image is this page's assumption. Past that, AI Pass is US$100 a month on top, so Canva has no figure at 500 or 2,000.
Several pages open on yearly prices. Canva shows £100 a year (Pro is £13 billed monthly), Magnific £10.50 (£14 monthly) and Recraft $10 ($12 monthly). ChatGPT Plus is £20 a month but says only "Limits apply" for images, so it isn't priced here.
Rights and privacy change the choice
Some of the cheapest plans come with strings that can matter more than the price: who may use the images commercially, and who else can see them.
- Midjourney: commercial use is allowed on every plan, but a business grossing more than $1,000,000 a year must buy Pro ($60 a month) or Mega ($120). On Basic and Standard your images are visible on the Midjourney website; private ("Stealth") mode starts at Pro.
- Recraft: free-plan images are public and "remain the property of Recraft", with no commercial use. Paid plans give full ownership, commercial rights and private generations.
- Freepik (now Magnific): the free plan is personal use only, with attribution; commercial use starts on Premium.
- Ideogram: commercial use is allowed on every plan, free included, but everything made on the free plan is public; Plus and up keep images private.
- Adobe Firefly, Canva and the two APIs allow commercial use on their paid plans and credits (Firefly for its features without the beta label), and none of them has a public gallery.
When the cheapest is not the answer
- An API isn't an app. Stability AI and OpenAI's image API are pay-as-you-go developer credit: you need code or a third-party app to use them. ChatGPT Plus (£20 a month) makes images too, but its pricing page says only "Limits apply".
- Allowances don't roll over. Midjourney's unused Fast time vanishes every month, even on yearly plans; Firefly's and Recraft's monthly credits don't carry over either.
- The model you pick changes the bill. These figures use one stated model per tool; a premium model can cost several times as much on the same plan.
- VAT differs. Adobe's price includes it; Magnific, Recraft and Ideogram show prices before VAT, and Midjourney adds it at checkout.
Who made this page
An AI agent read each tool's pricing page, help centre and terms in a real browser, switched it to monthly billing where there was a switch, and copied the sentence behind every figure; code checked each sentence was really on the page before it could be used. Midjourney's and Ideogram's prices come from their own help docs, because their pricing pages sit behind bot checks. No images were generated for this page.
This page replaces older lists of AI art and AI image generators on this site. There are no affiliate links on this page and nothing on it earns a commission.
How the numbers are worked out
monthly cost = the cheapest monthly plan, or pay-as-you-go spend, that covers that many images at standard resolution with commercial-use rights
How each tool counts an image:
- Midjourney: GPU minutes; one prompt is a set of 4 images in about a minute (SD 0.8, HD 1.3)
- OpenAI API: per image, medium quality at 1024×1024, $0.04347 each
- Adobe Firefly: the standard model is unlimited on paid plans; premium models use credits (Firefly Image 5 is 10)
- Ideogram: credits per image are shown only in the app; Plus keeps generating in a slower queue past its credits
- Canva: "uses" of Premium AI tools; one use counted as one image, this page's assumption (Dream Lab returns up to four)
- Freepik (now Magnific): Nano Banana 2 at 1K is 75 credits an image, unlimited on Plus
- Recraft: Recraft V4.1 is 2 credits an image
- Stability AI API: Stable Image Core is 3 credits, $0.03, an image
| Tool | 50 images | 500 images | 2,000 images |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adobe Fireflypremium models use credits (Firefly Image 5 is 10 a generation); the only price here that includes VAT | £9.98Firefly Standard, £9.98 a month including VAT: standard-model images are unlimited on every paid plan | £9.98Firefly Standard, £9.98 a month including VAT: unlimited standard-model images | £9.98Firefly Standard, £9.98 a month including VAT: unlimited standard-model images, with guardrails against misuse |
| Midjourneybills GPU minutes, not images; on Basic and Standard your images are public | £7.47Basic, 200 Fast GPU minutes a month; one prompt makes a set of 4 images in about a minute · $10.00 | £7.47Basic, 200 Fast GPU minutes (125 prompts of 4 images is about 100-160 of them) · $10.00 | £22.41Standard, 15 Fast hours plus unlimited Relax image generations (Relax waits 0-30 minutes) · $30.00 |
| Ideogramcredits per image are shown only in the app, so images per credit can't be read from public pages | £14.94Plus, 2,400 credits a month; credits per image are shown only in the app · $20.00 | £14.94Plus, 2,400 credits a month, then its own models keep going in a slower queue with no limit · $20.00 | £14.94Plus: past its monthly credits, Ideogram's own models keep generating in a slower queue with no limit · $20.00 |
| Recraftpaid plans give commercial rights and private images; the free plan gives neither | £8.97Basic, 1,000 credits a month (Recraft V4.1 is 2 credits an image) · $12.00 | £8.97Basic, 1,000 credits a month: 500 V4.1 images use exactly the allowance · $12.00 | £29.88Pro with 4,000 credits a month (2,000 V4.1 images) · $40.00 |
| Freepik (now Magnific)freepik.com now redirects to magnific.com; the free plan is personal use only | £14.00Premium, 20,000 credits a month = 266 Nano Banana 2 images at 1K (75 credits each) | £32.00Plus: Nano Banana 2 at 1K is unlimited on Plus | £32.00Plus: unlimited Nano Banana 2 at 1K; after the plan's priority usage, images come one at a time |
| Canvacounts uses of its AI tools, shared with design and other features, not images | £13.00Canva Pro, 'up to 200 uses' of Premium AI tools a month; one use counted as one image (this page's assumption) | no planNo figure: Pro's 'up to 200 uses' runs out, and more needs AI Pass at US$100 a month on top | no planNo figure: Pro's 'up to 200 uses' runs out, and more needs AI Pass at US$100 a month on top |
| Stability AI APIa developer API at $0.01 a credit; Stable Image Ultra is 8 credits an image | £1.12Pay-as-you-go API credit: 50 Stable Image Core images × 3 credits = $1.50; needs code or another app · $1.50 | £11.21Pay-as-you-go API credit: 500 × 3 credits = $15; needs code or another app · $15.00 | £44.83Pay-as-you-go API credit: 2,000 × 3 credits = $60; needs code or another app · $60.00 |
| OpenAI API (gpt-image)the API is billed separately from ChatGPT; ChatGPT Plus is £20 a month and says only 'Limits apply' | £1.62Pay-as-you-go API credit: 50 × $0.04347 (medium quality, 1024×1024); needs code or another app · $2.17 | £16.24Pay-as-you-go API credit: 500 × $0.04347; needs code or another app · $21.74 | £64.95Pay-as-you-go API credit: 2,000 × $0.04347; needs code or another app · $86.94 |
Exchange rates. ECB euro reference rates of 6 November 2026 (the latest published: 7 November 2026 is a Saturday and the ECB publishes on working days only): 1 EUR = 0.83415 GBP, 1 EUR = 1.1165 USD, so 1 USD = 0.74711 GBP.
Left out: Leonardo.ai — no price could be read: its pricing page is behind a bot check, and its help centre gives no plan price.
There are no affiliate links on this page. Of these, Adobe and Freepik (now Magnific) run cash affiliate programmes; this site hasn't joined either. The research is done by AI agents reading each vendor's own pages. Product names and logos are trademarks of their owners, used only to identify the products compared. No analytics cookies, no tracking scripts, no third-party requests. A personal project, separate from the author's day job.
Questions people ask
What is the cheapest AI image generator?
It depends on volume. For 50 images a month the two APIs are cheapest, Stability AI at $1.50 (about £1.12) and OpenAI at $2.17 (about £1.62), but they need code or another app. Of the apps, Midjourney Basic is $10 (about £7.47) for 50 or 500 images, and Adobe Firefly Standard is £9.98 a month including VAT at any volume, because its standard model is unlimited on paid plans.
Is Adobe Firefly unlimited?
Images from the standard Firefly model are unlimited on every paid Firefly plan, from Firefly Standard at £9.98 a month including VAT, with guardrails against scripting, account sharing and reselling. Premium models use credits: Firefly Image 5 costs 10 credits a generation.
Are Midjourney images private?
Not on Basic or Standard: their images are visible on the Midjourney website. Private (Stealth) mode starts at Pro, $60 a month. A business grossing more than $1,000,000 a year must also buy Pro or Mega to use its images commercially.
Can I use free AI-generated images commercially?
It depends on the tool. Recraft's free plan has no commercial use, and its free images remain the property of Recraft; Freepik (now Magnific) is personal use only on its free plan. Ideogram allows commercial use on every plan, free included, though everything made on its free plan is public.
Answers use the figures on this page, last checked 7 Nov 2026.