Midjourney pricing in 2026: every plan, the real cost, and is it free?

Midjourney has no free plan and no free trial on the web or in Discord. So the only honest answer to "how much does it cost" starts at $10 a month, and the right tier turns on one number nobody puts on the marketing page: fast GPU hours.

Ask Google or ChatGPT what Midjourney costs and you get the same four prices copied off the plan page, plus a vague "there used to be a free trial." Both skip the part that actually decides your monthly bill and whether the cheap tier is a trap. This is the full 2026 price list pulled straight from Midjourney's live plans page, plus the thing the recaps leave out: what those prices buy in real design work, and which tier fits a solo founder, an ecommerce brand, or an agency.

The short answer: what Midjourney costs in 2026

Midjourney sells four subscription tiers. All of them auto-renew, and all of them are paid: there is no free image tier.

Verified on September 24, 2026 against Midjourney's live plan comparison, all four tier names, monthly prices, annual totals, Fast GPU allocations, and mode limits below are current.

Committing to an annual plan, where you pay the full year upfront, takes 20% off. Midjourney's student guidance still requires each student to hold an individual subscription, and there is no permanent free option.

The number your bill actually runs on: fast GPU hours vs Relax

Midjourney does not meter you per finished image. It meters you in fast GPU hours, the compute time Midjourney actively spends creating your work in the priority queue. Image prompts, variations, and Creative or Subtle upscales draw down that pool, although a Discord grid upscale currently costs no GPU time. Basic gives you 3.3 Fast hours a month, which Midjourney counts as 200 minutes.

The current task rates make that concrete: an SD image prompt costs about 0.8 GPU minutes, an HD prompt about 1.3 minutes, and a Creative or Subtle upscale about 2 minutes. Basic's 200 minutes therefore covers roughly 250 SD prompts before upscales, not a guaranteed number of finished assets. Real design work is a prompt, variations, re-rolls because the first batch missed, then upscales on the keeper, so iteration is what drains the allowance.

That is where Relax mode changes everything. Relax is unlimited generation with no Fast-hour cost; the trade is speed, since Midjourney documents a queue of 0 to 30 minutes depending partly on your recent Relax use. Here is the catch the price recaps bury:

"Unlimited" still has capability limits: permutation prompts, the repeat parameter, HD video, and Max Upscale are unavailable in Relax mode. Relax video is SD only and limited to Pro and Mega.

So Standard is not "Basic with more fast hours." It is the first tier where you can iterate without a meter running. For most working designers, that single line is worth the jump from $10 to $30 more than the extra fast hours are.

Plan by plan: who each tier is really for

The prices are simple. Matching them to a workload is the part that saves or wastes money.

1. 1

   Basic ($10): trials and light, bursty use

   3.3 Fast hours, no Relax, up to 3 concurrent Fast image prompts, and 1 Fast video prompt at SD resolution. Repeat or permutation batches stop at 4 jobs, and the queue holds 10. Good for a founder who wants to generate a batch of social images once a month, or anyone testing whether Midjourney earns a place in their stack. Bad for daily iteration: you will hit the wall and either wait or buy Fast time at $4/hr, at which point you are paying Standard money for Basic limits.

2. 2

   Standard ($30): the working solo designer

   15 Fast hours plus unlimited Relax images, with up to 3 concurrent image prompts in Fast or Relax and 3 Fast video prompts at SD or HD resolution. Repeat or permutation batches stop at 10 jobs, and the queue holds 10. This is the tier that fits one person doing real client or product work: Fast when you need speed, Relax when you are exploring and can accept a queue of up to 30 minutes. For most readers this is the right answer.

3. 3

   Pro ($60): client work that has to stay private

   30 Fast hours, unlimited Relax for images and SD video, plus Stealth mode. Stealth controls visibility on Midjourney's website, but anything made in a public Discord channel remains visible there; for NDA work, pair Stealth with the web Create page, Discord direct messages, or a private server. Pro allows up to 12 Fast or 3 Relax image prompts and 6 Fast or 3 Relax video prompts at once. Repeat or permutation batches stop at 40 jobs; the queue holds 10 jobs, including up to 3 Relax videos. This is the agency and freelance-with-NDA tier.

4. 4

   Mega ($120): high-volume studios

   60 Fast hours, Stealth, and unlimited Relax for images and SD video. Like Pro, Mega allows up to 12 Fast or 3 Relax image prompts, 40-job repeat or permutation batches, and a 10-job queue with up to 3 Relax videos. Its distinct concurrency gain is video: up to 12 Fast video prompts instead of Pro's 6. The only reason to be here is raw Fast-queue volume; if you are not regularly exhausting 30 Fast hours or Pro's video concurrency, Mega is money left on the table.

Is Midjourney free?

No. There is no free tier and no free trial on the web or in Discord. Midjourney's current free-trial guidance points only to the limited Niji Journey mobile app trial described below.

The two real ways to touch it at no added cost are narrow: a limited trial exists through the Niji Journey mobile app (Midjourney's anime-styled sibling) on iOS and Android, and active subscribers can rate other people's images to earn Fast time. Each day, the top 2,000 raters receive 1 free Fast hour, which expires after 30 days. Neither is a dependable way to run real work for free. If your budget is zero, Midjourney is not your tool yet.

The cost nobody lists: commercial rights

For anyone using these images in a business, this matters more than the monthly price. If you have subscribed at any point, you can use the images and videos you generate in almost any way you want, including commercially. One ownership exception matters: if you upscale another user's creation, it remains theirs and you need their permission to use it. That clears most freelancers and small brands creating their own work.

The threshold to watch: if your company makes more than $1,000,000 in gross revenue per year, Midjourney requires you to be on the Pro or Mega plan. So for a venture past that line, the "which tier" question is partly answered by the terms of service, not just by workload. Budget for Pro at minimum.

Cheaper if you only need stills

If the privacy and video features are wasted on you and you mainly need on-brand still images, the math can favor a multi-model platform instead, where one subscription covers several engines and editing tools.

Leonardo AI review (2026)

The multi-model image platform that bundles generation, editing, and upscaling, often cheaper than Midjourney for stills-only work.

And if the feature you actually came for is video or consistent characters rather than single images, the cost comparison shifts to a different set of tools.

Higgsfield AI review (2026)

Where AI video and character consistency are the job, this is the comparison that matters more than Midjourney's tiers.

How much does Midjourney cost?

Four monthly plans: Basic $10, Standard $30, Pro $60, and Mega $120. Annual billing, paid upfront, takes 20% off each.

Is Midjourney free?

No. There is no free tier and no free trial on the web or in Discord. A limited trial is available through the Niji Journey mobile app; active subscribers can also compete for 1 free Fast hour by placing among the top 2,000 image raters that day.

Is it worth paying for Midjourney?

For image quality, yes for most paid creative work. The waste comes from the wrong tier: pick by your monthly volume, and treat Standard ($30) as the floor for anyone iterating daily, not Basic.

How much should I pay for Midjourney?

A solo designer doing real work: Standard, $30. Freelance or agency work under NDA: Pro, $60, for Stealth privacy. A high-volume studio: Mega, $120. Light monthly use only: Basic, $10.

Can I sell images created with Midjourney?

Yes, for images you own, as long as you have an active or past paid subscription. Companies earning more than $1,000,000 in gross revenue per year must be on the Pro or Mega plan to do so.

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