Is AI image generator free? What a free plan covers

An AI image generator can be free to start, but a free plan and free images are not the same thing: check what the plan includes and how each image is billed. On Sume, the Free plan costs $0, needs no credit card and includes access to image generation models, one job at a time. Each image still has a price: it is billed at its model's published USD rate from your balance, and a failed image isn't billed.

Plan facts come from Sume's pricing page; billing and queue facts come from the Image API and Generation admission docs. All were read on 2026-09-29.

What does Sume's Free plan include?

Sume describes the Free plan as a way to try image generation. Here is what the plan card and docs list:

Do the images themselves cost money?

Each image has a price. Sume's pricing FAQ says generation and API calls are billed at each model's published USD rate, and credits sit in one balance that everything draws from. A generation needs spendable balance: without it, the submit fails with 402 insufficient_credits before any work starts. The plan card doesn't list an included amount; your available balance is shown under Billing & subscription in the dashboard.

Each model has its own per-image price, listed on API pricing and compared model by model in AI image generator API cost. The price shown is the amount charged to your wallet, so the per-image price times n, the number of images you ask for, is what you pay.

What if an image fails?

You don't pay for it: Sume's image billing is all-or-nothing, so a completed generation is billed in full and a failed or cancelled one is not billed. The details, including client disconnects, are in AI image generator API cost.

What are the Free plan's limits?

Free runs 1 generation at a time and by default holds up to 5 more in its queue; when the queue is full, new submissions fail with 429 queue_full. Prepaid top-ups don't raise that limit; concurrency comes from the plan.

Free covers image generation and limited Sume Agent access. The pricing FAQ lists video generation, commercial use and the full generation catalog among what paid plans add, so an image you plan to sell or use in client work belongs on a paid plan; see AI image generator for commercial use. How plans and the wallet fit together is in How Sume pricing works.