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By the toolist.ai editors. Researched from Midjourney's own pages and hands-on tests published by others, not hands-on tested by toolist.ai. Updated October 9, 2026.

Midjourney review: pricing, features and what testers found

Midjourney is an AI image generator you use on its website or in Discord; each prompt makes four images, and it can turn an image into a short video. Paid plans start at $10 a month, or $8 a month billed yearly, and there is no free plan.

Our take

Midjourney is a strong pick when the look matters most: Zapier's Harry Guinness still finds its results some of the most visually appealing of the generators he compared, with great textures and colors. It is weaker at following detailed prompts exactly; The Decoder found its V8 alpha clearly behind Google's and OpenAI's models on a complex scene in March 2026, and Tom's Guide picked Google's Nano Banana over it overall in September 2025. There is no free plan, the $10 Basic plan has no Relax mode, and your images are public unless you pay for Pro ($60 a month) or Mega.

Based on Midjourney's published plans and the hands-on tests linked below, not on a test of our own.

Good for

  • Concept art, mood boards and stylized visuals where the look matters more than exact prompt control
  • Heavy users who can wait: Standard and up add unlimited slower Relax-mode images on top of Fast time

Watch out for

  • Plans sell Fast GPU time, not images. Midjourney puts one image prompt, which makes four images, at about 1 GPU minute (0.8 in SD, 1.3 in HD), so Basic's 200 Fast minutes are about 200 prompts, or about 800 images (615 if all HD, 1,000 if all SD). Creative and Subtle upscales use 2 minutes each, and unused Fast time does not roll over.
  • No free plan or website trial, and refunds only if the account has used less than 20 GPU minutes in its lifetime. Extra Fast time ($4 an hour) is non-refundable and expires after 60 days.
  • Images are public on Midjourney's Explore page by default; Stealth mode for private work needs Pro or Mega, and the terms give Midjourney a perpetual license to your prompts and images.
  • A company with more than $1 million a year in revenue must be on Pro or Mega to own its images.

What Midjourney does

Price

Free plan: None; Midjourney has no free plan and no free trial on its website or in Discord, only a limited trial in the niji·journey mobile app.

PlanBilled monthlyBilled yearly, per monthIncludesPrice per 1,000 images
Basic $10 $8 3.3 hours (200 minutes) of Fast GPU time: about 200 prompts at about 1 GPU minute each, or about 800 images at four per prompt; no Relax mode; SD video only; extra Fast time $4 an hour $12.50
Standard $30 $24 15 hours of Fast GPU time (about 900 prompts, or about 3,600 images at four per prompt) plus unlimited Relax-mode images; HD video in Fast mode $8.33
Pro $60 $48 30 hours of Fast GPU time (about 1,800 prompts, or about 7,200 images at four per prompt), unlimited Relax images and SD video, Stealth mode to keep work private, 12 Fast image jobs at once $8.33
Mega $120 $96 60 hours of Fast GPU time (about 3,600 prompts, or about 14,400 images at four per prompt), unlimited Relax images and SD video, Stealth mode, 12 Fast video jobs at once $8.33

Price per 1,000 images is our calculation: the monthly-billing price divided by what the plan includes, assuming you use all of it. It is not a measured cost.

Prices last checked: 2026-10-09 on Midjourney's pricing page. Full breakdown: Midjourney pricing.

Price history

No price change since we first recorded these prices on October 9, 2026. We re-check them every week and list each change here.

What hands-on testers found

We have not tested Midjourney ourselves. These are the published tests we found that used it hands-on, newest first; follow the links for the full reviews.

Zapier · Harry Guinness · updated August 3, 2026

What they tested: The same prompts run through each image generator head to head for a roundup of the eight best, last updated by an app tester in April 2026.

  • Midjourney still produces some of the most visually appealing results, with great textures and colors.
  • Other generators have now overtaken it, especially at sticking exactly to a prompt.
  • Every image is public on the Explore page by default, which may rule it out for business work.

The Decoder · Matthias Bastian · March 18, 2026

What they tested: The V8 alpha on a complex prompt he uses as an informal benchmark (a horse riding an astronaut), against Google's and OpenAI's image models and Flux.

  • Midjourney did significantly worse than Google's and OpenAI's models and could not put the horse on top.
  • Flux, a more direct competitor, did slightly better.
  • He said it was too soon to say whether V8 had closed the gap.

Tom's Guide · Amanda Caswell · updated September 12, 2025

What they tested: The same prompts head to head with Google's Nano Banana, covering photorealism, fantasy, everyday scenes, text and art styles, when V7 was Midjourney's default model.

  • Midjourney won the fantasy, coffee-shop and neon diner sign rounds; Nano Banana won overall.
  • It drifted from style instructions, turning a cartoon request into near-photoreal images, and the text in its woodblock-print images was illegible.
  • Its four images per prompt gave more choice and richer detail.

What users say

Test result

toolist.ai has not run its own test of Midjourney; the findings above come from the published tests linked. See how we research and test.

Best image tools · Midjourney pricing

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Sources