Tarifs des générateurs d'images IA en 2026 : coût par image entre Midjourney, DALL·E, Flux, Imagen, Wan, Doubao et plus
Why image generator pricing is harder than it looks
Every image generator advertises a single headline price, but the real cost depends on four variables that change the number by 5–10×:
- Resolution and quality tier — 1024×1024 standard vs. 2048×2048 HD can triple the per-image cost.
- Subscription vs. pay-as-you-go API — a $30/month Midjourney Standard plan works out to about $0.033 per image, while the same prompt on the OpenAI API costs $0.04–$0.13.
- Reject rate — production teams throw away 50–70% of generations. A 60% reject rate means you pay 2.5× the headline price per kept image.
- Hidden credits — Adobe Firefly, Leonardo, and Recraft all meter “premium” features separately, so the actual cost per image is rarely the number on the pricing page.
This guide ranks the 16 most-used text-to-image models in 2026 on a single cost-per-image axis, then translates that into monthly subscription cost for three realistic workloads: 100 images/month (casual), 1,000 images/month (creator), and 10,000 images/month (studio).
At-a-glance: per-image cost of every major model (Q3 2026)
| Model | Provider | Per image (standard, 1024²) | Per image (HD/2K) | Free tier | API access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flux.1 Schnell | Black Forest Labs | $0.003 | — | Yes (rate-limited) | Yes |
| GPT Image 1 Mini | OpenAI | $0.005 (low) / $0.011 (med) / $0.036 (high) | $0.049 | ChatGPT free | Yes |
| Tongyi Wanxiang 2.2-t2i-flash | Alibaba Bailian | $0.004 (¥0.03) | — | 90 days / 1M tokens | Yes |
| Imagen 4 Fast | $0.02 | — | AI Studio | Yes | |
| Ideogram 3.0 Turbo | Ideogram | $0.03 | $0.09 (Quality) | 10/day | Yes |
| Midjourney v7 | Midjourney | ~$0.033 (Standard plan) | ~$0.033 | None | Enterprise only |
| GPT Image 1.5 | OpenAI | $0.034 (med) | $0.133 (high) | ChatGPT Plus | Yes |
| Flux.1.1 Pro | Black Forest Labs | $0.04 | $0.06 (Ultra) | Playground | Yes |
| Imagen 4 | $0.04 | $0.06 (Ultra) | AI Studio | Yes | |
| Recraft V3 | Recraft | $0.04 | — | 30 credits/day | Yes |
| Zhipu CogView-4 | Zhipu BigModel | $0.007 (¥0.05) | — | OpenRouter ~$0.02 | Yes |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (“Nano Banana”) | $0.039 | — | Flow (zero credits) | Yes | |
| DALL·E 3 (legacy) | OpenAI | $0.04 (std) | $0.08 (HD) | Bing free | Until May 2026 |
| Wenxin Yige / ERNIE-image | Baidu Qianfan | Consumer: free daily credits; API billed per token | — | Daily free credits (watermarked) | Yes |
| Tencent Hunyuan Express | Tencent Cloud | $0.008–0.011 (¥0.06–0.08) | — | 10K free images (one-time) | Yes |
| Ideogram 4.0 Default | Ideogram | $0.06 | $0.10 (Quality) | 10/day | Yes |
| Hunyuan 2.0 | Tencent Cloud | $0.014 (¥0.10) | — | 10K free images | Yes |
| Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large | Stability AI | $0.065 | $0.08 (Ultra) | Self-host free | Yes |
| Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image) | $0.067 | $0.151 (4K) | AI Studio | Yes | |
| FLUX.2 Max | Black Forest Labs | $0.07 (1MP) | $0.16 (4MP) | Playground | Yes |
| Qwen-Image-Max | Alibaba / Qwen | $0.08 (¥0.15–0.20) | — | 302.AI / Qwen App | Yes |
| Jimeng AI 4.0 (Doubao) | Volcano Engine | $0.028–0.031 (¥0.20–0.22) | 4K billed separately | 200 free calls (concurrency 1) | Yes |
| Doubao Seedream 5.0 Lite | Volcano Engine | $0.031 (¥0.22) | — | 200 trial calls | Yes |
| Doubao Seedream 4.5 | Volcano Engine / BytePlus | $0.035 (¥0.25 at 1K/2K) | $0.07 (¥0.50, character set) | 200 trial calls | Yes |
| Hunyuan 3.0 | Tencent Cloud | $0.028 (¥0.20, high-tier) | — | 10K free images | Yes |
| Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image) | $0.134 | $0.24 (4K) | AI Studio | Yes | |
| Doubao Seedream 5.0 Pro | Volcano Engine / BytePlus | $0.19 (¥1.36 at 1K/2K) | $0.34 (¥2.44 at 4K) | None | Yes |
| Hunyuan TurboS | Tencent Cloud | $0.001 input / $0.0028 output per 1M tokens | — | — | Yes |
| Zhipu CogView-3-Flash | Zhipu BigModel | Free | — | Fully free, concurrency 30 | Yes |
| Hunyuan-lite | Tencent Cloud | Free (text only) | — | Permanently free | Yes |
| Kimi K2.5 multimodal | Moonshot | ¥2 input / ¥10 output per 1M tokens (image included in plan) | — | Kimi App free quota | Yes |
Numbers verified against each provider’s public pricing page in July 2026. Midjourney’s per-image cost is the effective rate on a $30/month Standard plan (15 fast GPU hours ≈ 900 images); Mega-plan users drop to ~$0.013 per image.
Chinese models: per-image cost in CNY and USD (Q3 2026)
Chinese models price in RMB (¥) on the domestic platform, but all the major models are now accessible internationally through BytePlus, Alibaba Model Studio (international), fal.ai, PiAPI, 302.AI, OpenRouter, and others. Domestic price is usually 2–3× cheaper than the international route because of the +86 phone-number requirement on Volcano Engine and the CNY-only payment on Baidu Qianfan.
| Model | Provider | Domestic per-image (standard) | Domestic 4K / flagship | International channel per-image | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tongyi Wanxiang wan2.2-t2i-flash | Alibaba Bailian | ¥0.03 (~$0.004) | — | fal.ai $0.008–0.02 | 90 days / 1M tokens |
| Tongyi Wanxiang wan2.2-t2i-plus | Alibaba Bailian | ¥0.05 (~$0.007) | — | fal.ai ~$0.02 | Same as above |
| Tongyi Wanxiang wan2.5-t2i-preview | Alibaba Bailian | ¥0.05 | — | fal.ai ~$0.07 (video) | Same as above |
| Qwen-Image-Max (Qwen flagship) | Alibaba / Qwen | ¥0.15–0.20 | — | 302.AI $0.08/image | Qwen App free trial |
| Qwen-Image-3.0 (released 2026-07) | Alibaba / Qwen | API invite-only | 4.5K-token long prompts | fal.ai TBD | Qwen Studio / Qwen App coming soon |
| Doubao Seedream 4.5 | Volcano Engine / BytePlus | ¥0.25 (25 credits at 1K/2K) | ¥0.50 (character set + 3-view) | fal.ai $0.0675 (≤1536²) / $0.135 (≤2048²) | 200 trial calls |
| Doubao Seedream 5.0 Lite | Volcano Engine | ¥0.22 (22 credits) | — | fal.ai $0.04 (via oFox relay) | 200 trial calls |
| Doubao Seedream 5.0 Pro | Volcano Engine / BytePlus | 136 credits (¥1.36) at 1K/2K; 244 credits (¥2.44) at 4K | 4K ¥2.44 | fal.ai $0.0675–0.135 | None |
| Jimeng AI 4.0 (image) | Volcano Engine | ¥0.20–0.22 | 4K billed separately | — | 200 free calls (concurrency 1) |
| Wenxin Yige / ERNIE-image (consumer) | Baidu | Free daily credits + points; API billed per token | — | — | Daily free credits (watermarked) |
| ERNIE 4.5 / X1 text-to-image | Baidu Qianfan | Input ¥0.004/1K tokens, output ¥0.016/1K tokens | — | — | Wenxin Yiyan / Qianfan free on signup |
| Tencent Hunyuan Express | Tencent Cloud | ¥0.06–0.08/image | — | — | 10K free images (one-time) |
| Tencent Hunyuan 2.0 | Tencent Cloud | ¥0.10/image | — | — | Same as above |
| Tencent Hunyuan 3.0 | Tencent Cloud | ¥0.20/image (high-tier) | — | — | Same as above |
| Tencent Hunyuan portrait / style / product-bg | Tencent Cloud | ¥0.06/image | — | — | Same as above |
| Tencent Hunyuan AI portrait / model try-on | Tencent Cloud | ¥0.22 / ¥0.25/image | — | — | Same as above |
| Zhipu CogView-4 | Zhipu BigModel | ¥0.05/image (~$0.007) | — | OpenRouter equivalent ~$0.02 | — |
| Zhipu CogView-3-Flash | Zhipu BigModel | Free | — | — | Fully free, concurrency 30 |
| Zhipu GLM-Image (multimodal generation) | Zhipu BigModel | Launching soon, pricing on par with CogView-4 | — | — | Time-limited free |
| Kimi K2.5 multimodal image | Moonshot AI | Bundled in monthly plan; ¥2 input / ¥10 output per 1M tokens | — | — | Kimi App free quota |
| Hunyuan-lite | Tencent Cloud | Free (text only) | — | — | Permanently free |
| Hunyuan TurboS | Tencent Cloud | ¥0.80 input / ¥2.00 output per 1M tokens | — | — | — |
Key takeaway: Domestic Chinese pricing is 30–70% cheaper than international. Tongyi Wanxiang wan2.2-t2i-flash is the cheapest per-image API (¥0.03/image), and CogView-3-Flash and Hunyuan-lite are the truly zero-cost entry points.
Subscription pricing for the big four consumer tools
| Tool | Free tier | Entry paid | Mid tier | Top tier | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midjourney v7 | None (since April 2023) | Basic $10/mo (~200 images) | Standard $30/mo (15 fast hrs + unlimited Relax) | Pro $60/mo, Mega $120/mo (60 hrs, Stealth) | Artistic, photorealistic, brand-consistent work |
| ChatGPT (GPT Image 1.5) | Limited daily images | Plus $20/mo (soft daily cap) | Pro $200/mo (unlimited) | Enterprise custom | Prompt adherence, in-chat editing |
| Adobe Firefly | 25 credits/mo (watermarked) | Standard $9.99/mo (2,000 credits, unlimited std) | Pro $19.99/mo (4,000 credits) | Premium $199.99/mo (50,000 credits) | Commercial-safe, Creative Cloud integration |
| Leonardo AI | 150 credits/day (~25 standard images) | Apprentice $12/mo (8,500 credits) | Artisan $24/mo (25,000 credits) | Maestro $48/mo (60,000 credits + API) | Custom LoRAs, consistent character, multi-model access |
| Recraft | 30 credits/day, public outputs, no commercial use | Basic $10/mo (1,000 credits) | Pro $16/mo (2,000 credits, video gen) | Premium $160/mo (16,000 credits) | Vector SVG, brand icons, typography |
| Ideogram | 10 generations/day | Plus $8/mo | Pro $20/mo | Max $48/mo | Typography in posters and logos |
Annual billing saves 20% on almost every tool above (Midjourney, Leonardo, Recraft, Ideogram), which is the single biggest discount available without negotiating an enterprise contract.
Subscription pricing for the major Chinese tools (¥/month)
| Tool | Free tier | Entry paid | Mid tier | Top tier | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jimeng AI (Dreamina) | Daily free credits (200 trial calls, concurrency 1) | Standard ¥69/mo (auto-renew, ~880 credits) | Advanced ¥200/mo | Premium ¥500/mo | Chinese posters, Doujin / Jianying workflow |
| Jimeng AI credit packs | — | 1K images ¥200; 5K images ¥1,000; 10K images ¥2,000 | 50K images ¥80,000 | 100K images ¥180,000 | API integration + high concurrency |
| Wenxin Yige (Baidu) | Daily free credits (watermarked) | Monthly membership from ¥30/mo | Premium ¥60+/mo | Commercial license pack | Chinese creatives, e-commerce templates |
| Baidu Qianfan ERNIE image API | Free tokens for new Qianfan users | Tiered per-token (¥0.004 input / ¥0.016 output per 1K) | Volume packs | Enterprise contract | Custom development, cross-modal |
| Tencent Hunyuan (API + console) | 10K free images (one-time activation) | 1K images ¥99; 10K images ¥850 | 100K images ¥7,500 | 1M images ¥65,000 | Posters, e-commerce images, product images |
| Tongyi Wanxiang (Alibaba Bailian) | 90 days / 1M free tokens for new users | Per-image ¥0.03–0.20 | Volume packs (e.g. ¥200/5K) | Coding Plan ¥9.9 first month | Alibaba ecosystem, Qwen Studio |
| Zhipu BigModel (CogView) | CogView-3-Flash fully free, concurrency 30 | GLM-4-Air ¥1/1M tokens | GLM-5 ¥30 input / ¥90 output per 1M tokens | GLM-5.1 ¥6/¥24; Coding Plan free | CJK-prompt friendly, large free quota |
| Moonshot Kimi K2.5 | Kimi App free quota | Kimi Coding Plan (subscription) | Kimi multimodal ¥2/¥10 per 1M tokens | Enterprise contract | Long text + multimodal image |
| Doubao Pro (launched 2026-06-23) | Doubao App free | Standard ¥68/mo (auto-renew, includes 2.1 Pro) | Enhanced ¥200/mo (4× quota) | Premium ¥500/mo (10× quota) | All-in-one (text + image + video + digital human) |
A few Chinese subscription details that differ sharply from global services:
- Jimeng AI runs a dual membership + credit system. The ¥69/mo Standard plan comes with ~880 credits per month, which translates to roughly 4,000 standard images or 200 high-quality images — but expect queues during peak hours (tens of thousands of users waiting, 2–11 hour delays are common).
- Doubao launched the new “Pro” tier in June 2026, which bundles Doubao 2.1 Pro + office tasks + digital human + video + Skills into one ¥68/mo package. For agent-style all-stack users, this is better value than buying ChatGPT Plus alone.
- Baidu Qianfan markets ERNIE 4.5 / X1 text-to-image at ¥0.004 / ¥0.016 per 1K tokens, advertised as “1% of GPT-4.5 price.” Converted to per-image, that ends up 2–3× cheaper than GPT Image 1.5 Medium.
- Tencent Hunyuan’s 10K free image pack is a one-time gift. The pack does not auto-roll into pay-as-you-go when exhausted — you must manually enable postpaid billing. This is the most common gotcha for new users.
- Zhipu is the most aggressive on the free tier — CogView-3-Flash is completely free with concurrency 30, and GLM-4.7-Flash is also free, making it the best entry point for individual developers.
Cost by workload
100 images/month (casual creator, blog illustrations)
For a one-image-per-day workflow, the cheapest option is Microsoft Designer (free, 15 fast + unlimited standard per day, no watermark). Among paid tools, the rankings are:
- Midjourney Basic — $10/mo, ~200 fast images. Effectively free overage if you stay under 200.
- ChatGPT Plus — $20/mo, soft daily cap on GPT Image 1.5. Best if you also use ChatGPT for writing.
- Recraft Basic annual — ~$10/mo. Best if you need SVG vector output.
- Ideogram Plus — $8/mo. Best if you need typography.
1,000 images/month (full-time creator, social media)
At 1,000 images per month, the per-image economics start to matter:
- Midjourney Standard — $30/mo, unlimited Relax mode + 15 fast hours. Effective rate ~$0.033/image.
- FLUX.1.1 Pro API — $0.04 × 1,000 = $40/mo, no subscription commitment.
- Imagen 4 standard API — $0.04 × 1,000 = $40/mo, best photorealism for the price.
- Adobe Firefly Standard — $9.99/mo, 2,000 premium credits. Unlimited standard generations. Bundled free with most Creative Cloud plans.
- Recraft Pro annual — ~$16/mo, 2,000 credits. Vector + image.
- China pick: Tongyi Wanxiang wan2.2-t2i-flash API — ¥0.03 × 1,000 = ¥30/mo (~$4.20), roughly 1/10 the price of comparable international models.
- China pick: Tencent Hunyuan 2.0 — ¥0.10 × 1,000 = ¥100/mo (~$14), CJK-prompt friendly with native Chinese aesthetics.
- China multimodal: Doubao Pro ¥68/mo — includes 2.1 Pro text + Seedream image + Seedance video. Quota is 5× the free tier, equivalent to 1,000–2,000 images.
10,000 images/month (studio, e-commerce, agency)
At this scale, subscription tiers stop being the cheapest path and APIs win on raw cost:
- Self-hosted Stable Diffusion 3.5 on an L40S GPU — ~$0.0008/image at full utilization, about $8/month in compute. Requires ML ops.
- FLUX.1 Schnell API — $0.003 × 10,000 = $30/mo at draft quality.
- FLUX.1.1 Pro API — $0.04 × 10,000 = $400/mo, production-grade quality.
- Imagen 4 Fast — $0.02 × 10,000 = $200/mo. Best photorealism per dollar at scale.
- Midjourney Pro — $60/mo, 30 fast hrs + unlimited Relax. The most cost-effective unlimited plan if your prompts don’t need fast-mode priority.
- China self-host: Tongyi Wanxiang wan2.2-t2i-flash — ¥0.03 × 10,000 = ¥300/mo (~$42), 1/10 of international pricing.
- China at scale: Doubao Seedream 5.0 Lite Volcano API — ¥0.22 × 10,000 = ¥2,200/mo (~$310), on par with Imagen 4 Fast.
- China compliance pick: Tencent Hunyuan 100K image resource pack — ¥7,500/mo (~$1,050), includes Chinese aesthetics and East-Asian style specialization, low IP risk.
- China free ceiling: Zhipu CogView-3-Flash — completely free. Run at concurrency 30 and you can hit 1–2M images/month at zero cost.
The hidden costs the headline prices miss
1. Regeneration tax. A 60% reject rate means you pay 2.5× the headline cost per kept image. Drop your reject rate from 60% to 40% with better prompts and reference images, and your monthly bill drops by ~35% even though the per-image price is unchanged.
2. Premium credit metering. Adobe Firefly, Leonardo, and Recraft all bundle “unlimited” standard generations but meter premium features (vector export, video, partner models) against a credit pool. The Firefly Free tier gives you 25 credits and the Standard plan gives 2,000 — a single Character Reference in Ideogram can cost 2–3× the base rate.
3. Resolution multiplier. Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large is $0.065 at 1MP but $0.08 at 2MP. GPT Image 1.5 high-quality is $0.133 at 1024×1024 and $0.20 at portrait/landscape. If your layout allows square crops, save 30–50%.
4. Stealth and private mode. Midjourney Pro ($60/mo) is the cheapest plan with Stealth Mode (private images, no public gallery). Adobe Firefly and Recraft gate privacy to paid tiers as well. If you generate client work, plan on the mid-tier subscription rather than the entry tier.
5. API rate limits. Free-tier API keys on OpenAI, Stability, and Google are throttled to 5–10 requests/minute. Production traffic needs a paid account and may need to be routed through multiple providers.
6. China-specific gotchas. On Volcano Engine, a +86 phone number is required for signup and the account is CNY-only. The Doubao “credit” unit (a Volcano Engine metering unit called “suan-dian” in Chinese, roughly 1 credit = ¥0.01) means 22 credits ≈ ¥0.22/image. Jimeng AI queues 2–11 hours during peak hours. Wenxin Yige watermarks all free-tier outputs.
By use case: which model wins in 2026
- Photorealism and product photography → Midjourney v7 for the look, FLUX.1.1 Pro Ultra ($0.06/image) for API. Imagen 4 Ultra ($0.06) is the best photorealism per dollar if you don’t need Midjourney’s art-direction controls.
- Typography and posters → Ideogram 4.0 is the only Western model that renders readable in-image text more than 70% of the time. For CJK, Seedream 4.5/5.0 Pro (¥0.25–1.36) renders Chinese, Japanese, and Korean with native-quality typography.
- Vector and brand icons → Recraft V3 is the only major Western model with native SVG export, critical for logo and icon work.
- Commercial-safe enterprise → Adobe Firefly is the only major model trained exclusively on licensed content. The $9.99 Standard plan is bundled free with most Creative Cloud subscriptions. In China, ERNIE 4.5/X1 via Baidu Qianfan and Hunyuan 3.0 are the enterprise-grade commercial-safe options.
- Cheapest at scale → FLUX.1 Schnell at $0.003/image for drafts, Imagen 4 Fast at $0.02 for production photorealism. In China, Tongyi Wanxiang wan2.2-t2i-flash at ¥0.03/image (~$0.004) is the cheapest API.
- Self-hosted, free, fully customizable → Stable Diffusion 3.5 weights on Hugging Face, free commercial license for organizations under $1M annual revenue. In China, Qwen-Image-3.0 and CogView-4 are also open-weight and self-hostable.
- Open-chat editing and brand consistency → GPT Image 1.5 in ChatGPT Plus, $20/month. The best in-conversation “change this, keep that” workflow. The Chinese equivalent is Doubao 2.1 Pro in the new ¥68/month Pro tier.
- Best free option → Microsoft Designer for casual use, Leonardo AI for self-serve experimentation with custom LoRAs. In China, Zhipu CogView-3-Flash (free, concurrency 30) is the strongest free option, followed by Hunyuan-lite.
- Chinese prompts and East-Asian aesthetics → Seedream 4.5/5.0 Pro (Volcano Engine) for multi-reference and Chinese typography, Tongyi Wanxiang wan2.5/2.6 for the “Oriental photorealism” look, Tencent Hunyuan 3.0 for high-end Chinese cultural and traditional aesthetics, Wenxin Yige for e-commerce and Chinese marketing templates.
How to pick
Pick the tool that matches the single use case you spend most of your time on. Multi-assistant workflows are common in 2026 — even power users tend to default to Midjourney for client work, GPT Image 1.5 for quick social media, and FLUX or Stable Diffusion for fully-customized production pipelines.
If you only pay for one subscription, Midjourney Standard at $30/month is still the best value for visual quality in 2026. The output, the v7 art-direction controls, and the new Omni Reference feature (for character consistency) are unmatched at that price.
If you specifically need API access at scale, FLUX.1.1 Pro at $0.04 per image or Imagen 4 at $0.04 per image are the best mid-tier production options.
For typography-led posters and logos, Ideogram 4.0 at $0.06/image (or $8/month for the Plus plan) is the clear winner — no other model produces readable in-image text consistently.
For fully-customizable, open-source workflows, FLUX.1 Dev and Stable Diffusion 3.5 (self-hosted) are the best options, but be prepared to invest GPU hours and developer time in setup.
For commercial safety at the lowest risk, Adobe Firefly Standard at $9.99/month is the cleanest answer — and it’s already included with most Creative Cloud subscriptions. In China, Baidu Qianfan ERNIE 4.5/X1 is the most enterprise-friendly, with full Chinese regulatory compliance and a published “1% of GPT-4.5 price” rate card.
For the single best China-only subscription, Doubao Pro at ¥68/month is the strongest all-in-one bundle in 2026 — text, image, video, digital human, and Skills in one subscription. For free, Zhipu CogView-3-Flash is the ceiling.
Quick reference: cheapest API per image, by use case
If you just want the cheapest way to call a model, here is the answer in two lines per region:
- Global cheapest — Flux.1 Schnell ($0.003) for drafts, FLUX.1.1 Pro ($0.04) for production photorealism, Ideogram 3.0 Turbo ($0.03) for typography.
- China cheapest — Tongyi Wanxiang wan2.2-t2i-flash (¥0.03) for drafts, Doubao Seedream 5.0 Lite (¥0.22) for production, Hunyuan 2.0 (¥0.10) for Chinese aesthetics, CogView-4 (¥0.05) for everything else. All have free trial credits.
- Free with the least friction — Zhipu CogView-3-Flash (China, free) or Microsoft Designer (global, 15 fast + unlimited standard per day).
Meilleures sélections de ce guide
Questions fréquemment posées
Quel générateur d'images IA est le moins cher par image en 2026 ?
Parmi les API commerciales, Flux.1 Schnell est le moins cher à environ 0,003 $/image, suivi de GPT Image 1 Mini à 0,005 $ (qualité basse, 1024×1024) et d'Imagen 4 Fast à 0,02 $. Si vous auto-hébergez Stable Diffusion XL sur votre propre GPU, le coût total descend à environ 0,0008 $/image à pleine utilisation — mais vous payez le matériel à l'avance.
Midjourney est-il moins cher que DALL·E en usage réel ?
Au prix par image, oui. Midjourney Standard à 30 $/mois produit environ 900 images rapides, ce qui revient à environ 0,033 $/image. Le même prompt via DALL·E 3 (devenu GPT Image 1.5) coûte de 0,034 $ à 0,133 $ par image. Le hic : Midjourney n'a pas d'API publique ni de niveau gratuit, tandis qu'OpenAI propose un niveau ChatGPT gratuit avec quelques images par jour et un abonnement Plus à 20 $/mois.
Quel est le meilleur générateur d'images IA gratuit en 2026 ?
À coût zéro, Microsoft Designer (anciennement Bing Image Creator) est la meilleure option gratuite en 2026 — il offre 15 générations rapides par jour plus des images standard illimitées, sans filigrane. Le niveau gratuit de Leonardo AI propose 150 crédits par jour (~25 images standard) et constitue la meilleure option pour expérimenter en autonomie. Pour l'open source totalement libre, Stable Diffusion 3.5 est gratuit si vous avez un GPU de 16 Go ou plus.
Combien coûte la génération d'images dans ChatGPT Plus ?
ChatGPT Plus est un forfait fixe à 20 $/mois et inclut la génération GPT Image 1.5 avec un plafond quotidien souple. Si vous dépassez le plafond, vous attendez ou passez à ChatGPT Pro à 200 $/mois, qui offre une génération illimitée à la qualité maximale. En coulisses, le même modèle sur l'API OpenAI coûte de 0,009 $ (basse) à 0,133 $ (haute) par image 1024×1024.
Quel générateur d'images IA est le plus cher ?
Au prix par image, les options commerciales les plus chères sont GPT Image 1.5 High à 0,133 $ par image 1024×1024, Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image) à 0,134 $ par image 1K/2K et Flux.1 Pro Ultra à 0,06 $ par image 2K. En abonnement, Midjourney Mega (120 $/mois) et Adobe Firefly Premium (199,99 $/mois) sont les plus chers.
Adobe Firefly vaut-il le coup face aux outils gratuits ?
Si vous tenez à la sécurité commerciale, oui. Firefly est le seul modèle majeur entraîné exclusivement sur du contenu Adobe Stock sous licence, donc le risque de PI pour l'entreprise est le plus bas de la catégorie. Le plan Standard à 9,99 $/mois donne 2 000 crédits premium et des générations standard illimitées, et Firefly est inclus gratuitement dans la plupart des abonnements Creative Cloud.
Quel générateur chinois d'images IA est le moins cher par image ?
Tongyi Wanxiang 2.2-t2i-flash est le moins cher à 0,03 ¥/image (environ 0,004 $) via Alibaba Bailian, suivi de près par Qwen-Image-Max à environ 0,08 $/image sur BytePlus et 302.AI. Le niveau Express de Tencent Hunyuan coûte 0,06–0,08 ¥/image, Doubao Seedream 4.5/5.0 Lite coûte 0,22–0,25 ¥/image, et Wenxin Yige est gratuit avec crédits quotidiens avec des formules payantes dès 30 ¥/mois. Pour des options totalement gratuites, Zhipu CogView-3-Flash est gratuit sur BigModel.
Combien coûte Doubao Seedream via Volcano Engine par rapport aux revendeurs internationaux ?
Via Volcano Engine (Chine continentale, numéro +86 requis) : Seedream 5.0 Lite coûte 22 crédits/image (~0,22 ¥) et Seedream 4.5 coûte 25 crédits/image (~0,25 ¥) pour sortie 1K/2K ; la sortie 4K de Seedream 4.5 évolue linéairement. Via les revendeurs internationaux (fal.ai, PiAPI, BytePlus ModelArk, 302.AI) : Seedream 5.0 Pro coûte 0,0675 $/image à ≤1536² et 0,135 $/image à ≤2048². La voie internationale est donc environ 2,5 à 3 fois le prix intérieur en CNY, mais c'est la seule voie pour les développeurs non chinois.
Comment se compare le prix de Wenxin Yige (image ERNIE) à l'API OpenAI ?
Wenxin Yige (le produit grand public) commence gratuitement avec des crédits quotidiens, avec abonnement payant dès 30 ¥/mois. Pour l'API ERNIE-image sous-jacente sur Baidu Qianfan, la grille officielle est d'environ 0,004 ¥/1K tokens d'entrée et 0,016 ¥/1K tokens de sortie, plus quelques centimes par image à 1024×1024. À l'inverse, GPT Image 1.5 Medium d'OpenAI coûte 0,034 $/image — une fois la conversion du tarif par token en tarif par image, l'API Baidu revient 2 à 3 fois moins cher en qualité standard et nettement moins cher en qualité haute (où OpenAI atteint 0,133 $/image).
Puis-je obtenir de la génération d'images chinoise gratuite en 2026 ?
Oui, quatre options crédibles. (1) Zhipu CogView-3-Flash est totalement gratuit sur BigModel avec une limite de concurrence de 30. (2) Wenxin Yige offre un quota quotidien de crédits gratuits (avec filigrane). (3) Volcano Engine offre 200 appels d'essai (concurrence 1) pour la génération d'images Jimeng. (4) Hunyuan-lite est gratuit sur Tencent Cloud pour le modèle texte et peu coûteux à 0,06–0,08 ¥/image pour l'image. À l'international, fal.ai, PiAPI et 302.AI offrent aussi des crédits d'essai à l'inscription.
Zhipu CogView-4 est-il moins cher que Recraft pour les images de style vectoriel ?
Zhipu CogView-4 coûte 0,05 ¥/image (~0,007 $) par génération, tandis que Recraft coûte 0,04 $/image (0,29 ¥) sur l'API publique. Donc Zhipu est environ 4 à 5 fois moins cher au prix catalogue. Cependant, Recraft est le seul modèle majeur avec exportation SVG native — pour les images purement raster, Zhipu gagne sur le prix ; pour la sortie vectorielle, Recraft est la seule option crédible quel qu'en soit le coût.