AI Image Generator Free Plans Compared: Credits and Limits
Start on Leonardo AI if you make images most days, because it hands out 150 tokens a day, more than any other free generator AI Digital Space compared. ImagineArt comes next with 100 credits a day and the cheapest upgrade of the four.
Image Genius's own comparison data, checked in September and October 2026, puts the four paid plans between £6.00 and £9.98 a month on a 12-month subscription.
Leonardo AI and ImagineArt refill every day
| Generator | Free allowance | When it refills | Paid plan, a month over 12 months | A year of that plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leonardo AI | 150 tokens a day | Every 24 hours, with no rollover | £7.56 | £90.72 |
| ImagineArt | 100 credits a day | Daily | £6.00 | £72.00 |
| Adobe Firefly | 25 credits a month | On your billing date, with no rollover | £9.98 | £119.76 |
| Open Art | 40 trial credits | Never, as they come once | £9.82 | £117.84 |
Leonardo AI's models each charge their own number of tokens, so a day's allowance stretches further on some than on others. Dupple's guide reckons on roughly 15 to 30 images a day.
Free generations on Leonardo AI can crawl at peak hours, with waits of 8 to 20 minutes common for free users, according to Dupple's guide to the tool.
ImagineArt's help pages keep the premium models it marks Pro out of reach of free credits. Its own subscription page adds that the free plan runs at a slower speed and stops short of full resolution. ImagineArt's daily credits arrive in two halves, 50 every 12 hours, by its own tool pages.
Firefly's monthly credits and Open Art's one-off trial
A basic text-to-image generation costs one credit on Adobe Firefly, as does Generative Fill in Photoshop, so its free month covers about 25 standard images. Whatever you haven't spent by your billing date is gone. Adobe's mobile apps add a second free route, with 12 generation credits, 10 of them for images.
Open Art gives new accounts 40 trial credits to use within 7 days, on its premium features and advanced models too. Siteefy points out that this is a trial rather than a renewable allowance. Joining its Discord community adds some bonus credits.
Free-plan images: commercial rights and privacy
Photon Pay's pricing guide says Leonardo AI's free plan lacks the commercial rights a business needs. Dupple's guide has its commercial licensing starting with the paid Artisan plan. AI Digital Space reports that images made on the free plan go into a public gallery and belong to the company rather than to you. Krea's review adds that private mode is a paid feature there. Unlike Firefly's, though, its free images carry no watermark, AI Digital Space adds.
Adobe Firefly watermarks every free result, and ComparEdge says the watermark rules out commercial use until you move to the Standard plan.
ImagineArt's free tier doesn't spell out a commercial license, and Unite.AI's review sends professional users to the Basic plan and up. Its free images are public by default. Toolquestor reports that private generation starts at its Standard plan.
Siteefy reports that Open Art's free plan keeps your creations private and runs up to four generations at once.
Open Art's trial reaches its whole model library
Open Art's trial credits can be spent across its full library of models. Counting every model it offers, that library holds 100, against 36 for ImagineArt, 30 for Adobe Firefly and 21 for Leonardo AI.
Leonardo AI's free plan includes its Phoenix model. ImagineArt's free credits run ImagineArt 1.0 Lite and Flux Dev. Adobe Firefly keeps free users on Adobe's own models, and outside models need a paid subscription. By default, Leonardo AI generates with Lucid Origin, Adobe Firefly with Firefly Image 5, ImagineArt with ImagineArt 2.0 and Open Art with Nano Banana Pro.
Image quality hardly separates them: Leonardo AI, Adobe Firefly and ImagineArt each score 9.8 and Open Art 9.6.
Upgrading costs £47.76 more a year on Firefly than on ImagineArt
Over a year, Adobe Firefly costs £47.76 more than ImagineArt on their 12-month plans. Adobe trained its own Firefly models on Adobe Stock images and other licensed content, and designed the web app to be commercially safe. Krea's guide to Firefly says its paid tiers make standard image generations unlimited and keep credits for premium work such as video, audio and partner models. Leonardo AI, Adobe Firefly and ImagineArt each allow commercial use of their images once you pay. Open Art allows none. All four can make several images from one prompt on their cheapest paid plan, though none of them includes API access there. For help, Leonardo AI offers email and live chat, Adobe Firefly live chat and phone, and ImagineArt and Open Art email, each with a knowledge base.
Leonardo AI for daily images, ImagineArt for a cheap upgrade
Pick Leonardo AI if you'll make images most days, because no free generator AI Digital Space compared has a larger fixed daily allowance, and Image Genius gives it 4.6 stars, more than any of the other three.
Choose ImagineArt if you expect to pay soon, since a year on its 12-month plan costs £72.00, the lowest of the four.
Adobe Firefly suits someone who makes a handful of images a month, provided a watermark doesn't matter. Someone weighing up premium models before paying will get more from Open Art's trial, since its credits reach every model it offers.
