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By the toolist.ai editors. Researched from vendor pages and hands-on tests published by others, not hands-on tested by toolist.ai. Updated October 9, 2026.
Best image tools
AI image tools are each good at different things, and most start at about $10 to $12 a month: Adobe Firefly Standard costs $9.99 with unlimited standard images, Midjourney Basic $10 for about 800 Fast-mode images, and Leonardo.Ai and Recraft $12. Ideogram Plus costs $20; Zapier's tester found Ideogram put text into images accurately and reliably, where most generators still struggle.
Quick picks
- Adobe Firefly: best for commercially safe AI images inside Photoshop and other Adobe apps
- Ideogram: best for images with accurate, readable text, such as posters and logos
- Leonardo.Ai: best for image and video creation with many models and fine control in one app
- Midjourney: best for artistic, stylized images and concept art
- Recraft: best for logos, icons and brand graphics as editable vectors
Compared
| Tool | Cheapest paid plan | Price per unit, calculated | Basis | Prices checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adobe Firefly | Firefly Standard ($9.99 a month) | $0.100 per premium image (Firefly Image 4 Ultra) | Researched | 2026-10-09 |
| Ideogram | Plus ($20 a month) | $0.083 per image | Researched | 2026-10-09 |
| Leonardo.Ai | Essential ($12 a month) | $1.41 per 1,000 tokens | Researched | 2026-10-09 |
| Midjourney | Basic ($10 a month) | $0.013 per image | Researched | 2026-10-09 |
| Recraft | Basic ($12 a month) | $0.024 per image | Researched | 2026-10-09 |
Listed in alphabetical order: we do not rank tools we have not tested ourselves. Price per unit divides each cheapest plan's monthly price by what it includes. Units differ between tools, so read the unit before comparing two rows.
Filter every tool by price and free plan in the tool directory, or price your own month in the AI cost calculator.
How to choose
- What you make: Midjourney for artistic, stylized images; Ideogram for readable text in posters and logos; Recraft for logos and icons as editable vectors; Adobe Firefly inside Photoshop (Photoshop on web and mobile comes with Firefly Pro, $19.99); Leonardo.Ai for many image and video models in one app.
- Price per image, by our calculation: about 1.3 cents on Midjourney Basic (Fast mode, four images per prompt), 2.4 cents on Recraft Basic (V4.1) and 8.3 cents on Ideogram Plus at its default High quality (2.5 cents at Low). Leonardo.Ai sells tokens that buy different numbers of images by model, and Firefly's standard images are unlimited.
- Free plans and privacy: Midjourney has no free plan, and its images are public unless you pay for Pro or Mega. Free images on Ideogram, Leonardo.Ai and Recraft are public, and Recraft's cannot be used commercially.
- Refunds: none from Ideogram, and none from Leonardo.Ai for a change of mind; Midjourney only if the account has used under 20 GPU minutes; Adobe within 14 days of the first purchase on most plans; Recraft at its discretion within 30 days of the last payment, and only if no credits were used since (or fewer than 30 ever).
Read more
- Adobe Firefly review · pricing
- Ideogram review · pricing
- Leonardo.Ai review · pricing
- Midjourney review · pricing
- Recraft review · pricing
Other categories: avatar video, text to video, editors, clips, script to video, voice, writing, coding. All lists: best-of lists.