Does the cheapest entry route produce the same quality?
No. Auto mode answers only which tracked published entry rate has the lowest cash cost. Select a model and output option before making a fixed-quality decision.
Official image API buying routes
AI image generation cost calculator
Turn usable image count, retry rate, output option, and budget into a complete workload cost and an actionable official API route.
Image workload
Image generation buying decision
4 official routes
Auto mode compares each model's lowest published output rate. It does not claim equivalent image quality.
Lowest published entry route
Official API · OpenAI
GPT Image 2
$1.00
within monthly budget
$0.01 per usable image
200
generated
Low · 1024×1536
output option
$24.00
budget left
Complete workload formula
100 usable × 2 attempts × $0.005/image
Published generation prices. Text and reference-image input tokens are excluded. Choose a specific model before treating quality or output tiers as equivalent.
Other published entry routesQuality not normalized
Nano Banana 2 Lite via Google
Standard · 1K
$6.72
Price source Nano Banana 2 via Google
Standard · 0.5K
$9.00
Price source Nano Banana Pro via Google
Standard · 1K
$26.80
Price source Rates checked Aug 26, 2026. Input-token charges, edits, storage, taxes, and cross-model quality differences are excluded.
Rates checked August 26, 2026
Retries change the effective cost per usable image.
For a selected model, the calculator preserves the exact published output option. Auto mode compares each tracked model’s published entry rate but labels the result as price-only because image quality is not normalized.
Every amount comes from an official provider price page.
Text and reference-image input token charges are excluded and disclosed.
The result shows cost per usable image after retries.
Auto mode never claims that cross-model image quality is equivalent.
Questions before purchase
Are image edits included?
No. This version estimates generation output. Image and text input tokens for edits can add cost on token-priced APIs.
Why include attempts?
If only one of two generations is usable, the effective cost per finished asset is twice the advertised per-image rate.
Need a different AI workload?
Compare video generation or token-based language model costs.