Question 1

How much does AI image generation cost?

Accepted Answer

DALL-E 3: $0.04-0.12 per image depending on quality/size. Midjourney: subscription-based ($10-60/month). Stable Diffusion: free self-hosted, cloud APIs $0.02-0.05 per image. Flux: $0.02-0.04 per image. Batch generation reduces per-image cost.

Question 2

What about AI video generation costs?

Accepted Answer

Video generation costs: Runway $0.05-0.25 per second, Pika Labs similar pricing, Sora (when available) expected $0.10-0.50 per second. Costs scale with resolution, duration, and complexity. 10-second 1080p video: $0.50-2.50 depending on provider.

Question 3

How do I estimate monthly image/video spend?

Accepted Answer

Monthly cost = images per day × cost per image × days + videos per day × cost per video × days. Add 20% buffer for failed generations and retries. Track actual usage after first month to refine estimates. Production workloads often 3-5x initial estimates.

Question 4

Which is cheapest for image generation?

Accepted Answer

Self-hosted Stable Diffusion: free after GPU setup ($10-50/month cloud GPU). Flux via API: $0.02-0.04 per image. DALL-E 3: $0.04 standard, $0.12 HD. For high volume, self-hosting saves 90%+ vs API costs but requires engineering effort.

Question 5

What resolution options affect cost?

Accepted Answer

DALL-E 3: 1024x1024 standard, 1792x1024/1024x1792 HD (3x cost). Midjourney: varies by version. Stable Diffusion: resolution-independent cost (compute time varies). Higher resolution = more compute but API pricing may not scale linearly.

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