AI ranking

Best AI models for image generation

Blind comparison of finished images: people pick the better picture without knowing which model drew it. This judges the result by eye rather than checking it against a task, which is why the difference between neighbouring places is most often statistically insignificant.

33 models in the table
33 considered in the calculation
10 July 2026 measurement date at the source
11 July 2026 newest model released here
7 August 2026 last recalculated
# Model Developer Arena Score, generation Sign in$ / 1M Output$ / 1M Contexttokens
1 GPT Image 2 OpenAI 1,384.81 1,380–1,390 $5 $30 272K
2 Mai Image 2.5 Microsoft 1,256.56 1,252–1,261
3 Nano Banana 2 Lite Google DeepMind 1,249.66 1,242–1,257 $0.25 $30 66K
4 Nano Banana Pro Google DeepMind 1,231.96 1,227–1,237 $2 $12 66K
5 Seedream 5.0 Pro ByteDance (Doubao) 1,231.15 1,220–1,242
6 Grok Imagine Image Quality xAI 1,229.3 1,225–1,234 8K
7 Qwen Image 2.0 Pro Alibaba (Qwen) 1,192.68 1,186–1,200 8K
8 Grok Imagine Image xAI 1,173.01 1,170–1,176 8K
9 Recraft V4.1 Utility Pro Recraft AI 1,169.22 1,158–1,180
10 FLUX.2 [max] Black Forest Labs 1,161.94 1,158–1,165 67K
11 FLUX.2 [flex] Black Forest Labs 1,156.25 1,153–1,160
12 FLUX.2 [pro] Black Forest Labs 1,155.22 1,152–1,158 67K
13 Seedream 4.5 ByteDance (Doubao) 1,146.61 1,144–1,150
14 Seedream 5.0 Lite ByteDance (Doubao) 1,132.5 1,129–1,136
15 Recraft V4.1 Pro Recraft AI 1,130.19 1,120–1,141
16 Imagen 4 Google DeepMind 1,128.82 1,126–1,132 0K
17 GPT Image 1 OpenAI 1,115.17 1,112–1,118 $5 $40 128K
18 Recraft V4 Recraft AI 1,112.75 1,109–1,116
19 GPT Image 1 Mini OpenAI 1,109.28 1,106–1,112 $2 $8
20 Wan2.7 Image Pro Alibaba (Qwen) 1,102.15 1,097–1,107 8K
21 Wan2.7 Image Alibaba (Qwen) 1,099.33 1,094–1,104 8K
22 FLUX.1 Kontext Max Black Forest Labs 1,074.07 1,071–1,077 $0.08 $0.08 1K
23 FLUX.2 [klein] 9B Black Forest Labs 1,069.32 1,066–1,073
24 Flux.1 Kontext Pro Black Forest Labs 1,058.75 1,055–1,062
25 Imagen 3.0 Generate 002 Google DeepMind 1,058.22 1,055–1,061
26 Qwen Image Alibaba (Qwen) 1,056.67 1,054–1,059 $0.5 $2 8K
27 FLUX.2 Klein 4B Black Forest Labs 1,029.92 1,027–1,033 $1 $1 128K
28 Recraft V3 Recraft AI 1,021.35 1,018–1,025 1K
29 Flux 1.1 Pro Black Forest Labs 1,015.77 1,012–1,019
30 Ideogram V2 Ideogram 1,013.48 1,010–1,017 0K
31 FLUX.1 Dev Black Forest Labs 969.54 966–973 $0 $0 4K
32 DALL E 3 OpenAI 967.7 964–971 1K
33 FLUX.1 Kontext Dev Black Forest Labs 940.42 937–944 41K

The table scrolls sideways: not all columns fit.

The price is the lowest among the model's providers, base tier, without batch or discounted rates. Input and output are shown separately on purpose: for most models the output costs several times more than the input, and the final bill depends on which of the two your task has more of.

The ≈ sign marks models whose confidence interval overlaps that of the row above. Here there are 19 models — their order among themselves is not determined by the available data.

The confidence interval for half the models is 7.3 points, and that is narrower than the gap to the neighbouring row: the order here is set by the data, not by who happened to vote this time. Votes per model here — median 87,149: the fewer there are, the wider the interval.

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