FLUX.3 Image 1k at $0.048 vs five cheaper Sume image models

FLUX.3 Image at the 1k tier (about 1 megapixel) costs $0.048 per image on Black Forest Labs' API. Five Sume image rows cost less per image: gpt-image-2.5 at low quality ($0.02475), grok-image ($0.025), imagen-4-fast ($0.025), flux-2-pro ($0.0375) and seedream-5-lite ($0.04375). Four more cost more. Sume does not list FLUX.3.

Ranked by price per image

The ranking mixes tiers that are not the same quality or size, so use it to shortlist candidates, not to pick a winner. Totals are for 1,000 images, a round number that makes the per-image price readable as dollars.

Caveats that change the order

gpt-image-2.5 on Sume is tiered by quality and size: low at 1K is $0.02475, medium at 2K is $0.055625, and high at 4K is $0.2225. If you omit quality, the Sume docs say the default is high, which is not the row in the table. Set quality explicitly when you want the low price.

Ideogram v4.5 is shown at its medium default. Nano Banana 2.1 is shown at 1K; its 0.5K tier is $0.075. FLUX.3's 1k tier is about 1 megapixel, which may not match another model's 1K.

Choosing

For bulk drafts, the first four rows are within a cent and a half of each other. For a finished asset where FLUX.3 is the required model, buy it from BFL. For a pipeline that mixes video, audio and images on one balance, pick from the Sume rows and verify live prices with GET /v1/images/models as described in the Image API docs.

Spread across a campaign

A 1,000-image campaign costs $48.00 at the FLUX.3 1k tier, $24.75 on gpt-image-2.5 low, $25.00 on grok-image or imagen-4-fast, $37.50 on flux-2-pro and $43.75 on seedream-5-lite. The cheapest to the dearest row in the table, nano-banana-2.1 at 1K, is $24.75 to $100.00, a 4x spread.