# Comparing vendors beyond the price

Lesson 1 of [AI image work at scale](https://aiimagegen.fyi/academy/ai-image-work-at-scale.md), 20 minutes.

At scale, the cheapest plan is rarely the cheapest way to work. The comparison that matters runs on five axes, and every vendor publishes the answers on its own pages.

## Axis 1: Cost per finished image

Count retries. Most workflows need two to four attempts per keeper, so a tool that needs three tries per keeper triples its effective price. Stability AI bills 1 credit = $0.01 with Stable Image Ultra at 8 credits per image (read 2026-11-13). Black Forest Labs lists FLUX.1 [pro] at $0.05 and FLUX.1 [dev] at $0.025 per image (read 2026-11-13). Photoroom Pro lists at $12.99 per month with 8,000 credits and 1,000 exports (read 2026-11-13). Convert each to cost per finished image at your real retry rate.

## Axis 2: Limits that bind at volume

Check the highest output resolution, the monthly generation or export cap, and concurrency or rate limits on APIs. A plan that caps exports at 1,000 per month fails a 5,000-image catalog regardless of unit price. Read the plan's limits section, not the marketing page.

## Axis 3: Commercial-use terms per plan

Terms differ by plan inside one vendor. Stability AI's Community License allows commercial use under $1M annual revenue (read 2026-11-13). FLUX.1-dev is non-commercial by licence while FLUX.1-schnell is Apache-2.0 (read 2026-11-13). Confirm the specific plan and model version covers your use.

## Axis 4: Consistency features

For sets, look for reference images, character consistency, style references and LoRA training. BFL's FLUX.2 editing docs describe multi-reference input up to 10 images (read 2026-11-13), and its docs include a style LoRA training guide (read 2026-11-13).

## Axis 5: Exit cost

Check export formats, whether you can take your assets and prompts, and whether an API change would strand your pipeline. Open weights remove vendor dependency entirely but add hardware and maintenance.

## A comparison worksheet

For each candidate, record: pricing model, cost per finished image at your volume, resolution cap, monthly cap, commercial-use terms for your plan, consistency features, API availability, platforms and exit terms. Fill it from the vendor's own pages with the date you read them. This site lists tools with exactly these attributes sourced from vendor pages.

## Sources

- [Stability AI API pricing](https://platform.stability.ai/pricing), accessed 2026-11-13.
- [Black Forest Labs pricing](https://www.blackforestlabs.ai/pricing), accessed 2026-11-13.
- [Photoroom pricing](https://www.photoroom.com/pricing), accessed 2026-11-13.
- [Stability AI Community License](https://stability.ai/license), accessed 2026-11-13.
- [FLUX.1-dev model card](https://huggingface.co/black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-dev), accessed 2026-11-13.
- [FLUX.1-schnell model card](https://huggingface.co/black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-schnell), accessed 2026-11-13.
- [Black Forest Labs, FLUX.2 image editing docs](https://docs.bfl.ml/flux_2/flux2_image_editing.md), accessed 2026-11-13.
- [Black Forest Labs, LoRA training guide](https://docs.bfl.ml/flux_3/flux3_image_klein_lora_guide.md), accessed 2026-11-13.

Also on the [web page](https://aiimagegen.fyi/academy/ai-image-work-at-scale/comparing-vendors-beyond-price).