whatmodel.sh · find the best image models you can run

Best image models under $0.02 per image

A leaderboard of the best image models that cost $0.02 or less per image. GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst is #1 right now, followed by GPT Image 2.5 Flare and Muse Image. Models are ranked by one score that combines 73 published benchmarks. Filter by your computer or budget to find the best one you can use.

102 models · scores combine 73 benchmarks · updated 2026-10-11 02:20 UTChow it works · find a leaderboard · benchmark your machine

task[all tasks][text to image][image to image / editing]

Filter by your hardware and budget · up to $0.020/image · reset

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set[all sets][LMArena text-to-image · 197][CVTG-2K word accuracy · 3]

Filter the model list while keeping overall scores. Models without a shared score scale are not yet calibrated; select a set to see its own scores.

Detect your exact chip or graphics card:

curl -G whatmodel.sh/image -d max=0 --data-urlencode "mac=$(sysctl -n hw.memsize machdep.cpu.brand_string)"Mac

curl -G whatmodel.sh/image -d max=0 --data-urlencode "ram=$(awk '/MemT/{print $2}' /proc/meminfo)" --data-urlencode "nv=$(nvidia-smi --query-gpu=name,memory.total --format=csv,noheader 2>/dev/null)"Linux

curl.exe -G whatmodel.sh/image -d max=0 --data-urlencode "ram=$((gcim Win32_ComputerSystem).TotalPhysicalMemory)" --data-urlencode "nv=$(nvidia-smi --query-gpu=name,memory.total --format=csv,noheader 2>$null)"Windows

$ terminal

ram[8][16][24][32][48][64][96][128][192][256]GB

gpu[apple silicon][graphics card][none]

price[local][$0.001][$0.005][$0.02][$0.1][any]max per image

detecting your OS…

Score vs API price

     │                                                           ◆ GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst
  75 ┤ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Muse Image·◆────◇ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
     │                             Recraft V4.1 Flash ◆─────∘ ◇    ∘    ◇      ∘      ∘   ∘    ∘ ∘ ∘      ∘
  50 ┤ · · · · · · · ·●────────────────∘──◆─────●─────┘· · ·◇· · ·◇∘ ◇ ◇∘· ·∘· ∘ ∘ · · ∘ · ·∘·∘· · ∘ · ·∘·∘· ·
     │   ●────────────┘         ∘∘                                               ∘
     └───────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┬──────────
                  $0.001                                  $0.01                                  $0.1

#	model	score↓	where↓	speed↓	RAM↓	get it	sources

#	model	score↓	where↓	RAM↓	get it	sources
1	GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst OpenAI	92±2	api $0.013/image		fal.ai ↗
2	GPT Image 2.5 Flare OpenAI	88±2	api $0.013/image		fal.ai ↗
8	Muse Image Meta	76±2	api $0.010/image		dev.meta.ai ↗
18	Qwen-Image-2.1 Alibaba	69±2	local	~12GB	how to run ›
23	Ideogram 4.0 Ideogram	66±2*	local	~6.1GB	how to run ›
26	Grok Imagine Image SpaceXAI (xAI)	66±2	api $0.020/image		docs.x.ai ↗
35	Cosmos3-Super-Text2Image NVIDIA	63±2	local	~154GB	how to run ›
38	HunyuanImage 3.0-Instruct Tencent	62±3*	local	~203GB	how to run ›
47	ERNIE-Image-Turbo Baidu	61±3†	api $0.010/image +local	~17GB	fal.ai ↗
48	Emu3.5-Image BAAI	60±5*	local	~85GB	how to run ›
49	ERNIE-Image Baidu	60±2	local	~17GB	how to run ›
56	Krea 2 Turbo Krea	59±3*	api $0.015/image +local	~20GB	www.krea.ai ↗
57	GPT Image 1 Mini OpenAI	59±2	api $0.011/image		developers.openai.com ↗
59	Qwen-Image-Edit-2509 Alibaba	59±3	local	~26GB	how to run ›
60	HiDream-O1-Image HiDream	58±2	api $0.010/image +local	~5.3GB	fal.ai ↗
61	FLUX.2 [dev] Black Forest Labs	58±1	local	~20GB	how to run ›	+8
63	Z-Image (Base) Alibaba (Tongyi-MAI)	58±2	api $0.010/image +local	~10GB	fal.ai ↗
65	HunyuanImage 2.1 Tencent	58±2*	local	~64GB	how to run ›
66	Qwen-Image-Edit-2511 Alibaba	58±2	local	~37GB	how to run ›	+2
67	Recraft V4.1 Flash Recraft	57±3*	api $0.0070/image		www.recraft.ai ↗
68	HunyuanImage 3.0 Tencent	57±2	local	~49GB	how to run ›	+3
69	Emu3.5 BAAI	57±5*	local	~85GB	how to run ›
72	LongCat-Image-Edit Meituan	56±2	local	~36GB	how to run ›
74	P-Image-Edit Pruna	56±4*	api $0.010/image		replicate.com ↗
76	Qwen-Image-2512 Alibaba	56±1	api $0.020/image +local	~22GB	replicate.com ↗	+1
78	Z-Image-Turbo Alibaba (Tongyi-MAI)	55±1	api $0.0050/image +local	~7.7GB	replicate.com ↗	+1
79	LLaDA-Image Ant Group	55±3†	local	~22GB	how to run ›
80	Qwen-Image-Edit Alibaba	55±2	local	~27GB	how to run ›	+4
82	FLUX.2 [klein] 9B Black Forest Labs	55±2	api $0.015/image +local	~11GB	developers.cloudflare.com ↗
85	Qwen-Image Alibaba	54±1	local	~13GB	how to run ›	+8
87	LLaDA-Image-Turbo Ant Group	54±3†	local	~22GB	how to run ›
88	LongCat-Image Meituan	53±4	local	~15GB	how to run ›
89	Step1X-Edit v1.2 StepFun	53±2	local	~51GB	how to run ›
90	Kling Image 2.1 Kuaishou	53±7*	api $0.014/image		kling.ai ↗
93	MiniMax image-01 MiniMax	53±5*	api $0.0035/image		platform.minimax.io ↗
97	FLUX.2 [klein] 4B Black Forest Labs	52±2	api $0.0011/image +local	~2.9GB	developers.cloudflare.com ↗
98	P-Image Pruna	51±2*	api $0.0050/image		replicate.com ↗
99	Photon Luma AI	51±2	api $0.019/image		fal.ai ↗
102	GLM-Image Z.ai	50±2	api $0.015/image +local	~39GB	docs.z.ai ↗
105	Lucid Origin Leonardo.Ai	49±3*	api $0.017/image		replicate.com ↗
106	Latent Diffusion text2img-large (LDM-KL-8-G, LAION-400M) CompVis	48±15*	local	~7.5GB	how to run ›
107	Kandinsky 3 AI Forever	48±11*	local	~32GB	how to run ›
108	Step1X-Edit v1.1 StepFun	48±3	local	~51GB	how to run ›
110	VQ-Diffusion (ITHQ) Microsoft	48±15*	local	~4.1GB	how to run ›
113	Ovis-Image-7B Alibaba (AIDC-AI)	48±7*	local	~12GB	how to run ›
114	FLUX.1 Krea [dev] Black Forest Labs / Krea	47±3	local	~41GB	how to run ›
116	HiDream-I1-Full HiDream	47±2	local	~76GB	how to run ›
126	FLUX.1 Kontext [dev] Black Forest Labs	44±1	local	~21GB	how to run ›	+7
127	FLUX.1 [dev] Black Forest Labs	44±1	local	~7.7GB	how to run ›	+5
129	UNO ByteDance	43±4*	local	~16GB	how to run ›
130	ChronoEdit-14B NVIDIA	43±3*	local	~34GB	how to run ›
131	Lumina-Image 2.0 Alpha-VLLM (Shanghai AI Lab)	43±4*	local	~13GB	how to run ›
133	BAGEL ByteDance Seed	42±1	local	~12GB	how to run ›	+14
135	FLUX.1 [schnell] Black Forest Labs	42±2	api $0.0030/image +local	~7.7GB	replicate.com ↗
136	OmniGen2 BAAI	42±2	local	~17GB	how to run ›	+6
137	Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large Stability AI	42±1	local	~5.4GB	how to run ›	+4
138	Show-o2 7B Show Lab, NUS	42±3	local	~23GB	how to run ›
139	Playground v2 (1024px aesthetic) Playground	41±4*	local	~4.9GB	how to run ›
140	Playground v2.5 Playground	41±2	local	~8.8GB	how to run ›	+1
141	Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium Stability AI	41±3	local	~20GB	how to run ›
146	Show-o2 1.5B-HQ Show Lab, NUS	40±3*	local	~7.9GB	how to run ›
148	Stable Diffusion XL 0.9 (base) Stability AI	40±6*	local	~4.9GB	how to run ›
149	Stable Diffusion 3 Medium Stability AI	40±2	local	~11GB	how to run ›
150	Kolors Kuaishou (Kolors team)	39±3	local	~22GB	how to run ›
151	BLIP3-o 8B Salesforce Research	38±3	local	~41GB	how to run ›
152	Stable Cascade Stability AI	38±4*	local	~13GB	how to run ›
153	Janus-Pro-7B DeepSeek	38±2	api $0.0020/image +local	~18GB	deepinfra.com ↗
156	SDXL-Lightning (4-step UNet) ByteDance	37±3*	local	~4.9GB	how to run ›
157	Kandinsky 2.2 AI Forever	37±5*†	local	~12GB	how to run ›
158	Janus-Pro-1B DeepSeek	36±4	api $0.0005/image +local	~5.5GB	deepinfra.com ↗
159	Show-o (show-o-demo-512) Show Lab, NUS	36±3*	local	~7.9GB	how to run ›
161	SSD-1B Segmind	36±4*	local	~3.3GB	how to run ›
163	PixArt-α (PixArt-XL-2-1024-MS) PixArt (Huawei Noah's Ark Lab et al.)	36±2	local	~14GB	how to run ›
164	Emu3 BAAI	36±2	local	~22GB	how to run ›
166	IF-XL DeepFloyd	35±2	local	~29GB	how to run ›	+1
167	Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 Stability AI	34±1	api $0.0019/image +local	~4.9GB	www.together.ai ↗	+8
168	LCM-SDXL latent-consistency	34±3	local	~8.9GB	how to run ›
169	OmniGen (v1) BAAI	34±4	local	~9GB	how to run ›
170	SDXL-Turbo Stability AI	34±2	local	~4.9GB	how to run ›
171	IF-L DeepFloyd	33±3	local	~14GB	how to run ›
172	Lumina-DiMOO Alpha-VLLM (Shanghai AI Lab)	32±4*	local	~39GB	how to run ›
174	VILA-U 7B (256px) MIT Han Lab / NVIDIA	32±7*	local	~20GB	how to run ›
175	LCM-SSD-1B latent-consistency	32±4*	local	~3.6GB	how to run ›
176	Janus-1.3B DeepSeek	32±4	local	~5.5GB	how to run ›
177	IF-M DeepFloyd	31±3	local	~14GB	how to run ›
178	Dreamlike Photoreal 2.0 Dreamlike.art	30±3	local	~2.1GB	how to run ›
182	Versatile Diffusion v1.0 SHI Labs	29±4	local	~7.2GB	how to run ›
183	DALL·E Mega (minDALL-E) DALL·E Mini / minDALL-E	29±4	local	~8GB	how to run ›
185	Openjourney PromptHero	28±2	local	~2.1GB	how to run ›
186	Stable Diffusion v1.4 CompVis	27±2	local	~2.1GB	how to run ›
187	Stable Diffusion v1.3 CompVis	27±4*	local	~2.1GB	how to run ›
188	Stable Diffusion v1.1 CompVis	26±3	local	~2.1GB	how to run ›
189	Stable Diffusion v1.2 CompVis	26±3*	local	~2.1GB	how to run ›
191	Stable Diffusion v1.5 Stability AI	26±2	local	~2.1GB	how to run ›	+1
192	OneCAT-3B Meituan (OneCAT team)	24±5*	local	~25GB	how to run ›
193	LCM Dreamshaper v7 SimianLuo (LCM authors)	23±4*	local	~1.7GB	how to run ›
194	InstructPix2Pix UC Berkeley (Brooks, Holynski, Efros)	19±3	local	~2.6GB	how to run ›
197	CogView2 THUDM	1±4	local	~14GB	how to run ›
—	Kandinsky 2.1 AI Forever	not scored yet	local	~12GB	how to run ›
—	Mage-Flow Microsoft	not yet calibrated	local	~8.9GB	how to run ›
—	Mage-Flow-Base Microsoft	not yet calibrated	local	~14GB	how to run ›
—	Mage-Flow-Turbo Microsoft	not yet calibrated	local	~8.9GB	how to run ›

+ 100 more don't fit your machine or budget · show them

202 of 202 catalogue models listed here · sources and licences

* new or thinly tested: ranked on too few benchmark results · † only the maker’s own numbers so far · ~RAM is estimated; full context may need more memory