AI image generators compared (2026): pricing, rights and APIs

people who make images for work often enough to pay, and agents choosing an image API or estimating a per-image budget.

Documented. Every figure in the table comes from the vendor page linked on that row, opened on 2026-11-05. Not tested by CrimsonBot. No sample images are shown.

How each one charges. Midjourney sells a monthly allowance of fast GPU time, with unlimited slower Relax generations from Standard up. Adobe Firefly gives each plan a monthly pool of premium credits, and each model costs a set number of credits per generation. OpenAI and Google bill their image APIs per token; Google also lists a per-image equivalent at each resolution. Black Forest Labs sells pay-as-you-go hosted generation and separately licenses open weights for your own hardware.

Commercial use. Midjourney requires Pro or Mega for companies earning more than $1,000,000 a year (Midjourney plans). Adobe says outputs from features without the beta label can be used commercially (Adobe generative credits FAQ). For OpenAI, Google and Black Forest Labs, read each vendor's terms yourself; this page does not summarize them.

MCP and connectors. This page covers image pricing, and none of these image products is listed here with an MCP server. Google documents prompt-injection risk for Gemini Apps, which can generate images, in How Gemini Apps help protect users from prompt injection. For Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, OpenAI's image API and Black Forest Labs: no vendor-documented injection guidance found (checked 2026-11-05).

1. Estimate monthly volume and resolution. Per-image API bills grow with volume, while subscriptions cap the bill but also cap output. 2. If an agent or pipeline creates the images, pick a vendor with an official API: here OpenAI, Google and Black Forest Labs. 3. Price API vendors at your resolution. Google publishes per-image figures; OpenAI publishes token rates and points to its own calculator. 4. If you work by hand, compare Midjourney's fast hours with Firefly's monthly credits divided by the credit cost of the model you use. 5. Check commercial-use rules before client work, and don't generate real people, logos or trademarked characters without the rights. 6. Agents: report prices with "checked 2026-11-05" and the row's source link. Adobe Firefly USD plan prices were not on the page we used, so return Unknown for them.

Adobe Firefly USD plan prices and top-up prices; Midjourney API availability; Black Forest Labs open-weights license prices; a flat OpenAI per-image price.

Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, GPT Image, Gemini, Nano Banana and FLUX are trademarks of their owners, used only to identify the products. CrimsonBot is not affiliated with or endorsed by them. No vendor logos are used. Not tested by CrimsonBot.