The short answer
Replicate is billed per image / gpu-second ($0.003-0.04). It has no free tier (None (limited playground try-for-free only)). The paid plans we list start at From $0.000225/sec (T4) to $0.001525/sec (H100) (Pay-as-you-go (time-based)).
Plans and prices
| Plan | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go (time-based) | From $0.000225/sec (T4) to $0.001525/sec (H100) | Per-second GPU billing used by most community models; you pay for setup, idle and active time on private models. Multi-GPU up to 8x A100/H100 available with committed contracts. |
| FLUX Schnell (official, per-image) | $3.00 / 1,000 images ($0.003 each) | Fast, low-cost text-to-image official model billed per output image rather than per second. |
| FLUX Dev (official, per-image) | $0.025 / output image | Higher-quality FLUX variant with output-based pricing. |
| FLUX 1.1 Pro (official, per-image) | $0.04 / output image | Top-tier FLUX model on Replicate, billed per generated image. |
| Recraft V3 / Ideogram v3 | $0.04 / image (Recraft V3); $0.09 / image (Ideogram v3 Quality) | Commercial official image models with flat per-image pricing. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Volume discounts, committed-use multi-GPU capacity, and dedicated support. |
How Replicate bills you
The pricing model is per image / gpu-second ($0.003-0.04). Run-any-model platform with excellent DX, webhooks, and SDKs across many languages; strong community catalog but pay-per-use with no real free tier. Best suited to: run any open model via one api.
What to watch for on the bill
- Per-second GPU billing on community models is hard to predict at production scale
- Frequently cited as 5-15x more expensive than direct/specialized providers for a single high-volume model
- No persistent free tier for sustained production use
The pricing page we read
Source: https://replicate.com/pricing. Prices change, so confirm there before you commit.
Compare Replicate with alternatives
- OpenAI Images (gpt-image) vs Replicate pricing
- Google Imagen / Gemini Image vs Replicate pricing
- fal.ai vs Replicate pricing
Other image generation apis: OpenAI Images (gpt-image), Google Imagen / Gemini Image, fal.ai, Stability AI, Black Forest Labs (FLUX).
Looking at quality rather than price? See the Replicate score on APIbenchmarks. Full entry: Replicate pricing.