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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