Penny Owl AI SavingsBack to LeaderboardAI Images Leaderboard
Which AI image models are best — and the cheapest verified price per picture.
- Models ranked
- 36ranked & buyable
- Organisations voting
- 44 boards
- Price quotes tracked
- 209
- Typical price spread
- 2×
What this leaderboard ranks
This leaderboard ranks AI image generators by combined quality, blending matching results from four organisations — Artificial Analysis, Arena, Design Arena and Rapidata — with one equal vote each. Beside every rank sits the cheapest verified price for one image at 1K, 2K and 4K, because an image model is only a bargain at the size you actually generate.
Prices are for one image at the shown size tier (1K ≈ 1024×1024, 2K ≈ 2048×2048, 4K ≈ 4096×4096; exact dimensions vary by model and aspect ratio).
Top of the board
| Rank | Model | 1K / image · cheapest | 2K / image · cheapest | 4K / image · cheapest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst | $0.173Atlas Cloud | $0.347Atlas Cloud | $0.324Atlas Cloud |
| 2 | GPT Image 2.5 Flare | $0.173Atlas Cloud | $0.347Atlas Cloud | $0.324Atlas Cloud |
| 3 | GPT Image 2 | $0.128Replicate | $0.128Replicate | $0.128Replicate |
| 6 | GPT Image 1.5 | $0.136Replicate | — | — |
| 4 | MAI-Image-2.6 | $0.079Atlas Cloud | — | — |
| 11 | MAI-Image-2.6 Flash | $0.040Atlas Cloud | — | — |
| 14 | MAI-Image-2.5 | $0.050Atlas Cloud | — | — |
| 5 | Nano Banana 2 | $0.028Atlas Cloud | $0.042Atlas Cloud | $0.056Atlas Cloud |
| 10 | Nano Banana Pro | $0.047Freepik / Magnific | $0.047Freepik / Magnific | $0.084Atlas Cloud |
| 12 | Nano Banana 2 Lite | $0.040Atlas Cloud | — | — |
Cheapest verified offer per column, from the same catalog as the main chart. Click a model for every seller's price and settings.
What makes it special
Images are where subscription maths hides. Some sellers price per picture, some bill by tokens or megapixels, and some fold generation into a monthly plan. Penny Owl marks subscription-equivalent prices with their own icon and keeps the exact size with every quote, so a "cheap" 1K price is never quietly compared against someone else's 4K.
What it is good at
Finding the true per-picture cost at your working size — and spotting when the same model is resold for a fraction of the price under a different name or plan.
The three leaderboards, side by side
Compare all aggregators →Same rules on every board: one equal vote per organisation, at least two organisations to rank, and price never changes a quality rank. Bar length is relative to the strongest board on that line.
Counts are calculated from the same catalog as the charts, at page render. A wide spread is not a quality score — it is how much the sellers disagree about price.