Compare DALL·E 3, Stable Diffusion XL, Flux.1, and Midjourney pricing. Enter daily generation volume → see exact monthly cost. Free, no signup.
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Cost per image. API pricing unless noted.
| Model | Price / image | Quality | API? | 1,000 images |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stable Diffusion XLCHEAPEST API | $0.009 | Good | Yes | $9 |
| DALL·E 3 Standard | $0.040 | Excellent | Yes | $40 |
| Flux.1 Pro | $0.050 | Excellent | Yes | $50 |
| Midjourney Basic | ~$0.050 | Excellent | No (Discord) | $50 |
| DALL·E 3 HD | $0.080 | Best | Yes | $80 |
Running SDXL on a $0.50/hr GPU spot instance (Hetzner, Vultr) generates ~500 images/hour. At 10,000 images/day: self-hosting costs ~$10/day vs $90 with SDXL API. Break-even at ~5,000 images/month.
GPU hosting for self-hosted image generation:
DALL·E 3 via OpenAI API: $0.040 per standard 1024×1024 image, $0.080 per HD image, $0.120 per 1792×1024 HD image. For 1,000 standard images: $40.
Midjourney Basic ($10/mo) gives ~200 images/month at $0.05 each. DALL·E 3 standard at $0.040 is slightly cheaper per image with API access. For programmatic use, DALL·E 3 or SDXL are better since Midjourney has no official API.
SDXL via Replicate/API at $0.009/image is cheapest managed API. Self-hosting SDXL on a spot GPU is cheaper at scale (~$0.002–0.005/image). Midjourney has no API; DALL·E 3 is cheapest quality-tier API option.
No official API as of 2026. Midjourney requires Discord interaction. For programmatic image generation, use DALL·E 3 (OpenAI API), Stable Diffusion (Replicate/fal.ai), or Flux (Replicate).