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Best AI APIs for image generation
Models you can call through a paid API, ranked from public benchmarks, with their price in this task’s unit.
STop ranked: GPT Image 2.5 (OpenAI), 1,220 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1).29 options listed · data verified 19 Oct 2026
Ranked list
| Tier | Name | Approach | Runs | Rated by | Price | Skill | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S |  GPT Image 2.5OpenAI | Models | Cloud | 1,220 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.21/image | — | |
| A |  Nano Banana 2.1Google | Models | Cloud | 1,174 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.03/image | — | vs GPT Image 2.5 |
| A |  Grok Imagine Image 2.0xAI | Models | Cloud | 1,167 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.04/image | — | vs GPT Image 2.5 |
| A |  MAI-Image-2.6Microsoft AI | Models | Cloud | 1,166 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.04/image | — | vs GPT Image 2.5 |
| A |  Muse ImageMeta | Models | Cloud | 1,127 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.01/image | — | vs GPT Image 2.5 |
| B | MAI-Image-2.6-Flash Microsoft AI | Models | Cloud | 1,119 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.02/image | — | vs GPT Image 2.5 |
| B |  FLUX 3 ImageBlack Forest Labs | Models | Cloud | 1,116 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.05/image | — | |
| B | Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image) Google | Models | Cloud | 1,115 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.13/image | — | |
| B | Nano Banana 2 Lite (Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image) Google | Models | Cloud | 1,106 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.03/image | — | |
| B | Seedream 5.0 Pro ByteDance Seed | Models | Cloud | 1,100 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.09/image | — | vs GPT Image 2.5 |
| B | Qwen-Image-3.0-Pro Alibaba (Qwen) | Models | Cloud | 1,094 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.04/image | — | |
| C |  Krea 2Krea | Models | Cloud | 1,034 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.03/image | — | |
| C |  Ideogram 4.0Ideogram | Models | Local | 1,026 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | Open weights | — | |
| C |  Recraft V4.1Recraft | Models | Cloud | 1,025 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.04/image | — | |
| C | Uni-1.1 Luma AI | Models | Cloud | 1,022 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.04/image | — | |
| C |  Ideogram 4.5Ideogram | Models | Cloud | 1,016 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.1/image | — | |
| C |  Seedream 5.0 LiteByteDance Seed | Models | Cloud | 1,016 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.04/image | — | |
| C |  FLUX.2 [dev]Black Forest Labs | Models | Local | 1,000 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | ~24 GB VRAM | — | |
| C |  Ming-Image-0.1-DesigninclusionAI (Ant Group) | Models | Local | 999 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | Open weights | — | |
| C |  P-Image-IdeogramPruna AI | Models | Cloud | 995 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.01/image | — | |
| C |  Cosmos3-Super-Text2ImageNVIDIA | Models | Local | 992 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | Open weights | — | |
| C |  HunyuanImage 3.0Tencent | Models | Local | 989 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | Open weights | — | |
| C |  Wan 2.7 ImageAlibaba | Models | Cloud | 985 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.03/image | — | |
| C |  HiDream-O1-ImageHiDream.ai | Models | Local | 974 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | Open weights | — | |
| C |  Z-Image TurboAlibaba (Tongyi-MAI) | Models | Local | 934 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | ~16 GB VRAM | — | |
| C |  Kling IMAGE 3.0 OmniKuaishou (Kling AI) | Models | Cloud | 918 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | $0.03/image | — | |
| C |  ERNIE-Image-TurboBaidu | Models | Local | 914 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | ~24 GB VRAM | — | |
| C |  GLM-ImageZ.ai | Models | Local | 888 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | Open weights | — | |
| C |  LongCat-ImageMeituan (LongCat) | Models | Local | 858 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) | Open weights | — |
Tiers come only from public benchmarks (Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1)); tools without a result of their own inherit the tier of the best model they offer. How we rank.