100, 500 or 1,000 images at 5 cents or less: nine Sume models
Nine Sume image models bill 5 cents or less per image. See the cost of 100, 500 and 1,000 images, plus which ones edit and which take 4:5.
Nine models in the Sume image catalog bill 5 cents or less per image: Higgsfield Soul (1), Grok Imagine, Qwen Image and Imagen 4 Fast (3 each), Seedream 4.0 and Flux 2 Pro (4 each), and Seedream 5.0 Lite, Seedream 4.5 and Recraft V4 (5 each). A hundred images cost between $1 and $5, and a thousand cost $10 to $50.
The budget tier in one table
Sume bills the catalog list price multiplied by 1.25 and rounded up to the next cent. The 100, 500 and 1,000 columns multiply that billed cent figure by the count.
| Model | Billed per image | 100 images | 500 images | 1,000 images | Edits with references |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soul (Higgsfield) | 1 cents | $1 | $5 | $10 | no |
| Grok Imagine | 3 cents | $3 | $15 | $30 | yes |
| Imagen 4 Fast | 3 cents | $3 | $15 | $30 | no |
| Qwen Image | 3 cents | $3 | $15 | $30 | yes |
| Flux 2 Pro | 4 cents | $4 | $20 | $40 | yes |
| Seedream 4.0 | 4 cents | $4 | $20 | $40 | yes |
| Recraft V4 | 5 cents | $5 | $25 | $50 | no |
| Seedream 4.5 | 5 cents | $5 | $25 | $50 | yes |
| Seedream 5.0 Lite | 5 cents | $5 | $25 | $50 | yes |
What the cheap tier can and cannot do
Three of the nine do not accept references: Soul, Imagen 4 Fast and Recraft V4 are text-to-image only, and Imagen 4 Fast and Recraft V4 reject image_urls. If your job is an edit from a product photo, the cheap edit-capable rows are Grok Imagine and Qwen Image at 3 cents, Seedream 4.0 and Flux 2 Pro at 4, and the two Seedream 5.0 Lite and 4.5 rows at 5.
Ratios differ too. Soul, Grok Imagine and the two Imagen rows do not list 4:5, while the other five budget models do. Sume rejects a ratio a model does not list with 400 unsupported_parameter, so check the descriptor first.
- Text-to-image only: Higgsfield Soul, Imagen 4 Fast, Recraft V4.
- Edit-capable: Grok Imagine, Qwen Image, Seedream 4.0, Seedream 4.5, Seedream 5.0 Lite, Flux 2 Pro.
- One image per call: Grok Imagine. The rest take up to 4.
When to pay more
Move up the ladder when a finished asset needs more than a draft. The next steps are Flux 2 Flex and GPT Image 2.5 high at 7 cents, then Ideogram 4.5 medium at 8 cents. The hundred-image test costs under $10 at each of those, so test before scaling.
Choosing inside the tier
Pick by the constraint, not the price. For 4:5 with editing, the three choices are Seedream 4.0 at 4 cents, and Seedream 5.0 Lite or 4.5 at 5. For a text-only draft at the lowest bill, Soul at 1 cent is five times cheaper than the 5-cent rows, but it lists neither 4:5 nor edits. For a 3-cent row with 4 images per call and references, Qwen Image is the match; Grok Imagine returns one image per call.
The cheapest honest plan is a ladder: 500 images at 1 to 3 cents to find directions ($5 to $15), then the 20 best ideas on a 5-cent edit-capable row ($1.00), then a final on a 7 or 8-cent row. Total under $20.
Sources
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