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Facts checked against both vendors on September 28, 2026.
Midjourney is the stronger choice for individuals and small teams who want a finished creative tool: a web app, an editor, video, and a fixed monthly bill. FLUX from Black Forest Labs is the stronger choice for developers and companies who want to pay per image through an API, run open weights themselves, or license a model to ship inside a product. If you never intend to write code, pick Midjourney; if you are building something, FLUX is usually the better fit.
Midjourney and FLUX are both frontier image models, but they are sold in completely different ways. Midjourney is a hosted subscription with one interface and one vendor. FLUX is a model family from Black Forest Labs that you reach through a pay-as-you-go API, a web playground at the same prices, or downloadable weights under several licenses.
This comparison is filed under FLUX.1, the line that made Black Forest Labs' name, but the vendor's current lineup is FLUX.2 for images and FLUX 3 for video, with the FLUX.1 models still served as a previous generation. All prices and features below come from the two vendors' pricing, documentation and license pages as of September 2026.
Midjourney is an image and short video generator used through midjourney.com and paid for by subscription. Its default model is V8.2, released July 24, 2026, which the vendor describes as focused on aesthetics, image quality and Personalization and which introduced an Edit Model in place of Omni Reference, Character Reference and Retexture. V8.1 renders standard jobs about four to five times faster than earlier versions and produces 2K images without upscaling. The web Editor offers Remix, inpainting (Vary Region), Pan, Zoom Out, Layers and Smart Select, and works on uploaded images. Any image can become a 5 second video, extendable four times to 21 seconds.
FLUX is a family of models from Black Forest Labs. The current image generation is FLUX.2: [klein] 4B, released under Apache 2.0 and fully open; [klein] 9B under the FLUX Non-Commercial license; [dev], open weights and free for non-commercial use; and three API-only models, [pro] which the vendor calls the best balance of quality, speed and cost, [max] for maximum quality with grounding search, and [flex] for adjustable inference steps. The previous FLUX.1 generation is still available: FLUX1.1 [pro] and its Ultra variant for text-to-image, FLUX.1 Kontext [pro] and [max] for context-aware editing, Kontext [dev] as open weights for non-commercial editing, and FLUX.1 Fill [pro] for inpainting and outpainting. FLUX 3 Video adds a multimodal video model with synchronized audio, API only.
Midjourney charges by GPU time on four plans. Basic is $10 a month or $96 a year with 3.3 hours (200 minutes) of Fast GPU time and three concurrent jobs. Standard is $30 a month or $288 a year with 15 hours of Fast time plus unlimited Relax-mode images. Pro is $60 a month or $576 a year with 30 hours, twelve concurrent Fast jobs and Stealth mode. Mega is $120 a month or $1,152 a year with 60 hours. Companies earning more than $1,000,000 a year in gross revenue must subscribe to Pro or Mega.
Black Forest Labs bills the API and the playground in credits where 1 credit equals $0.01, with no subscription and no seat fees. FLUX.2 pricing is per megapixel: [klein] 4B from $0.014, [klein] 9B from $0.015, [pro] from $0.03 for text-to-image and $0.045 for editing, [flex] from $0.05 and [max] from $0.07. The FLUX.1 models are priced per image: FLUX1.1 [pro] at $0.04, FLUX1.1 [pro] Ultra and Raw at $0.06, FLUX.1 Fill [pro] at $0.05 and FLUX.1 Kontext [pro] and [max] from $0.04 to $0.08. Fine-tuned endpoints cost the same as the base model during the public beta. FLUX 3 Video runs from $0.17 to $0.80 a second at full quality depending on resolution, or $0.06 a second in draft.
Self-hosting for commercial use is a separate license. The vendor lists Builder with the FLUX.2 [klein] models, 10,000 images a month, one domain and fine-tuning and LoRA rights; Platform with [klein] 9B plus FLUX.2 [dev] and 100,000 images a month; Professional with FLUX.2 [dev], 100,000 images a month and up to three domains for agency work on behalf of clients; and Enterprise with all models and new releases at custom volume. Builder and Platform prices appear at checkout and the others are sales-led, so check the licensing page for the current numbers.
It is a complete product. Midjourney bundles generation, a taste model that learns from your ratings, a full editor with layers and inpainting, and image-to-video, all in one web app with one bill. FLUX gives you models and a playground; the workflow around them is yours to assemble.
Flat cost for heavy personal use. Standard's unlimited Relax images at $30 a month have no per-image meter. With FLUX every generation is 1.4 to 7 cents at API rates, which is cheaper at low volumes but has no ceiling.
Video on every plan. Midjourney's 5 to 21 second clips are included in your GPU time from the $10 Basic tier. FLUX 3 Video is API-only and priced per second, from $0.06 in draft to $0.80 at the top resolution.
You can build with it. The API and the playground share one price list, there are no seats or subscriptions, and 1 credit is a cent. A product that needs a few thousand images a month pays for exactly that. Midjourney's plans page lists no API.
You can own it. FLUX.2 [klein] 4B is Apache 2.0, FLUX.2 [dev] and Kontext [dev] are open weights for non-commercial use, and the Builder, Platform, Professional and Enterprise licenses let you run FLUX.2 in your own environment for commercial work with fine-tuning and LoRA rights. Nothing in Midjourney leaves Midjourney's servers.
Editing as a first-class model. FLUX.1 Kontext and FLUX.2 editing endpoints take an input image and a text instruction, and FLUX.1 Fill handles masks for inpainting and outpainting, all callable from code. Midjourney's Edit Model is powerful but lives only in its Editor.
A ladder of price and quality. From [klein] 4B at $0.014 per megapixel to [max] at $0.07, you can route cheap jobs to cheap models and reserve the expensive one for hero images. Midjourney offers one current model at one GPU rate.
Pick Midjourney if you are an individual creator, a designer or a small marketing team that wants excellent images and quick edits without touching an API, and if you value a predictable monthly cost. Standard is the sensible default; Pro if you need Stealth or your company earns over $1 million a year.
Pick FLUX if you are a developer, a product team or an agency. Use the API for pay-per-image generation and editing, the playground to test prompts at the same rates, and a Builder or Platform license if you want to run FLUX.2 weights yourself with fine-tuning. Choose [pro] as the default, [klein] for speed and cost, and [max] when quality matters more than price.
Built from each tool's listing. Vendors can update their own listing after claiming it.
Basic is $10 a month or $96 a year with 3.3 hours of Fast GPU time. Standard is $30 a month or $288 a year with 15 hours plus unlimited Relax images. Pro is $60 a month or $576 a year with 30 hours and Stealth mode. Mega is $120 a month or $1,152 a year with 60 hours. Companies over $1,000,000 in annual gross revenue must use Pro or Mega.
Pay as you go at 1 credit per $0.01 with no subscription: FLUX.2 [klein] 4B from $0.014 per megapixel, [klein] 9B from $0.015, [pro] from $0.03 (text-to-image) and $0.045 (editing), [flex] from $0.05, [max] from $0.07; FLUX1.1 [pro] $0.04 per image, Ultra $0.06, Fill $0.05, Kontext [pro] and [max] $0.04 to $0.08. Self-hosted commercial licenses (Builder, Platform, Professional, Enterprise) are priced at checkout or by sales.
