Midjourney Pricing: V8.2, Image Rights & Cost Per Image
Midjourney pricing breakdown: Basic starts at $10/month, V8.2 is now default, and you get about 1,000 images from the Basic plan. No free trial or public API.
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Midjourney is a paid image and short video generator that works in your browser and on Discord. As of July 24, 2026, V8.2 is the default version, and subscriptions start at $10 per month (no VAT), with no free trial. Midjourney wasn’t included in our ranking of eight image generators because it has no public API, and its terms of service prohibit automated image generation. Below you’ll find pricing verified from the official documentation, cost per image calculations, versions, image rights, and comparisons with models we’ve tested.
Related reading: Midjourney vs Gemini: Image Generator Test 2026.
Summary
Midjourney is cheap per image but expensive upfront, and you can’t connect it to automation. The Basic plan at $10 gives you 200 minutes of fast GPU time, and one standard-quality prompt uses 0.8 minutes. That works out to about 250 prompts, each producing 4 images, or roughly $0.01 per image - cheaper than the least expensive model in our API test ($0.03). But you pay upfront, and unlimited Relax mode only starts with the Standard plan at $30. We haven’t measured Midjourney’s quality, so we don’t include it in our ranking. Our take: Choose Midjourney for illustrations and artistic images made manually, not for batch production or graphics with text in non-Latin scripts.
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All plans are subscriptions that renew automatically monthly or annually. Annual payment gives you a 20% discount. Dollar amounts are from the plan comparison in Midjourney’s documentation.
| Plan | Monthly | Annually | Fast GPU | Relax Mode | Stealth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $10 USD | $96 USD | 3.3 h (200 min) | no | no |
| Standard | $30 USD | $288 USD | 15 h | unlimited images | no |
| Pro | $60 USD | $576 USD | 30 h | unlimited images and SD video | yes |
| Mega | $120 USD | $1152 USD | 60 h | unlimited images and SD video | yes |
An additional hour of fast GPU costs $4 on any plan. In Relax mode, prompts wait in a queue from 0 to 30 minutes, depending on how often you use it. Turbo mode is four times faster than Fast but uses twice as much time. According to the version table in the documentation, it only works in V6 and V7, not in V8.1 and V8.2. An older article about how much Midjourney costs describes which plan is for whom.
Cost Per Image
Midjourney doesn’t count images, only GPU minutes. According to the documentation, a standard resolution (SD) prompt uses 0.8 minutes, HD (2048 px) uses 1.3 minutes, and HD editing uses 2.3 minutes. According to Midjourney’s guide, one prompt produces a set of four images.
| Method | Prompts | Images | Cost per Image |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic, SD mode (200 min) | approx. 250 | approx. 1,000 | approx. $0.01 USD |
| Basic, HD mode (200 min) | approx. 153 | approx. 615 | approx. $0.016 USD |
| Additional GPU hour, SD | 75 | 300 | approx. $0.013 USD |
| Standard, Relax | unlimited | unlimited | $30 USD monthly flat rate |
This calculation assumes you use your entire allocation and that all four images are useful. In practice, you usually pick one from the grid, so the real cost per useful image is higher. Creating variations, upscaling, and custom aspect ratios also consume time.
Versions: V8.2, V8.1, V7 and niji
- V8.2 - default since July 24, 2026. Improved aesthetics and personalization, plus a new Edit Model that replaced Omni Reference, Character Reference, and Retexture.
- V8.1 - released April 14, 2026. According to the company, 4-5 times faster than previous versions, with 2048 px HD images without upscaling and Raw mode, which disables default stylization.
- V7 - still available with the
--v 7parameter. Guides: Style Reference and Draft Mode. - niji 7 - a separate model for anime and manga, described in the niji 7 guide.
Getting Started
- Go to midjourney.com and create an account or log in.
- Purchase a plan. You can’t generate images without a subscription, even on Discord. Basic monthly is enough to try it out.
- Type a description in the “Imagine” field, preferably in English. Add parameters at the end, for example
--ar 16:9for aspect ratio or--v 8.2for version. - In settings, choose your default version, Fast or Relax mode, and enable HD if you need 2048 px.
- Rate images to build your personalization profile. The company also gives free GPU time for rating.
Image Rights
According to the terms of service, images belong to you “to the fullest extent possible by law,” even after canceling your plan. There are two exceptions. A company or employee of a company with revenue over $1 million USD annually must have a Pro or Mega plan. Additionally, images are public by default and other users can remix them; you can only hide them with Stealth mode on Pro and Mega plans. Midjourney also gets a perpetual license to your prompts and results. For more on what this means legally, see the article about copyright for AI images.
Why Midjourney Isn’t in Our Test
In our image generator ranking, every model received the same prompts via API, and a script measured time and cost. Midjourney has no public API, and the terms of service explicitly prohibit using automated tools to access the service or generate images. Unofficial intermediaries violate this restriction and risk account suspension, so we didn’t use them. Manually entering prompts on the site wouldn’t provide comparable time and cost measurements, which is why Midjourney didn’t receive a rating.
A comparison based on pricing and features looks like this:
| Midjourney V8.2 | Nano Banana Pro | GPT Image 2 | Seedream 5.0 Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per image | approx. $0.01 USD with full Basic usage | $0.134 USD | $0.033 USD (medium) | $0.045 USD |
| Payment | subscription from $10 USD | per image via API | per image via API | per image via API |
| API and automation | no | yes | yes | yes |
| “ŻÓŁĆ” in our test | not tested | no error | no error | no error |
| Rating in our test | none | 9.0/10 | 8.7/10 | 8.5/10 |
If you need text rendering in non-Latin scripts or generation from code, choose a model with an API. For graphics with text, it’s also worth checking out Ideogram. The full comparison is in the guide to AI image generators.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Midjourney free?
No. On the website and on Discord, you need to purchase a subscription. The cheapest is Basic at $10 USD monthly or $96 USD annually.
Does Midjourney have an API?
There is no public API, and the terms of service prohibit using automated tools to generate images. Unofficial intermediaries risk account suspension.
How many images does the Basic plan give you?
200 minutes of fast GPU equals about 250 prompts in standard quality, or about 1,000 images, since each prompt produces four. In HD, it works out to about 153 prompts.
Can you sell images from Midjourney?
Yes, the terms of service allow commercial use on any plan. A company with revenue over $1 million USD annually must have a Pro or Mega plan.
What is the latest version of Midjourney?
V8.2, default since July 24, 2026. Earlier versions V8.1, V7, and V6 can be selected with the --v parameter.
Sources and Verification Date
Midjourney documentation
- plan comparison
- GPU time (Fast, Relax, Turbo)
- versions
- getting started guide
- terms of service. API model prices: our test via OpenRouter from September 27
- 2026. Verified September 27
- 2026
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