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.
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An e-commerce product photography tool generating 3 lifestyle images per product, processing 200 new SKUs per day: 600 images/day × 30 = 18,000 images/month. DALL·E 3 Standard: 18,000 × $0.040 = $720/month. SDXL via API: 18,000 × $0.009 = $162/month. Self-hosted SDXL: ~$40–60/month in GPU compute. Quality trade-off is real but measurable.
How we source AI image generation pricing.
Sources: DALL·E 3 pricing is sourced from OpenAI's API pricing page. Stable Diffusion XL and Flux pricing is sourced from Replicate's model pricing pages and fal.ai's published rates. Midjourney pricing is sourced from their official subscription page (no API pricing exists).
Pricing model: All API prices are per-image, pay-as-you-go rates. We do not include volume discounts or credits that may apply at enterprise contract levels. Midjourney is included as a cost-per-image estimate based on their monthly subscription tiers (Basic: $10/mo ≈ 200 images; Standard: $30/mo ≈ 500 images).
Self-hosting estimates: GPU spot pricing references current Hetzner and Vultr spot instance rates for NVIDIA A100/H100 class GPUs. Throughput estimates (images/hour) are based on community benchmarks for SDXL at default settings. Self-hosting costs are not shown in the interactive calculator but are discussed in the tips section.
Update cadence: We review image generation API pricing monthly. AI image pricing is relatively stable compared to LLM pricing, but new model releases can significantly change the cost-quality frontier. When a major change occurs, we update within 48 hours.
DALL·E 3 via the OpenAI API costs $0.040 per standard 1024×1024 image, $0.080 per HD 1024×1024 image, and $0.120 per HD 1792×1024 (landscape) image. For 1,000 standard images: $40. There are no batch discounts or volume tiers for image generation.
Midjourney Basic ($10/mo) gives approximately 200 images at $0.05 each. DALL·E 3 Standard at $0.040/image is slightly cheaper per image with the benefit of API access. For programmatic generation inside an application, DALL·E 3, SDXL, or Flux are the only viable options since Midjourney has no public API.
Stable Diffusion XL via Replicate or fal.ai at approximately $0.009/image is the cheapest quality managed API option. At scale, self-hosting SDXL on a spot GPU reduces cost further to $0.002–0.005/image depending on hardware and throughput. Flux.1 Pro ($0.050) and DALL·E 3 ($0.040) are more expensive but produce higher quality outputs.
No official public API as of June 2026. Midjourney requires Discord interaction. For programmatic image generation in applications, use DALL·E 3 (OpenAI API), Stable Diffusion (Replicate/fal.ai), or Flux.1 (Replicate). Some unofficial Midjourney wrappers exist but violate the terms of service.
Self-hosting becomes cost-effective at approximately 5,000–10,000 images per month. Below that, managed APIs are cheaper when you factor in setup and maintenance time. Above that threshold, a $10–20/month spot GPU can generate the same volume at 80–90% lower cost than APIs. You'll need DevOps knowledge and to handle uptime, updates, and model management yourself.
Standard quality uses fewer diffusion steps, producing slightly softer results but at half the cost ($0.040 vs $0.080). HD quality uses more steps for sharper detail, more accurate text rendering, and better fine-grained composition. For user-facing product images or marketing material, HD is recommended. For internal previews, prototyping, or where speed matters, Standard is sufficient.
Flux.1 is a high-quality diffusion model from Black Forest Labs, available via Replicate at $0.050/image. In community benchmarks, Flux.1 Pro produces comparable or better results to DALL·E 3 HD for photorealistic images while offering more flexible licensing for commercial use. DALL·E 3 has better text-in-image rendering. Both cost more than SDXL but produce notably higher quality output.