Photoroom Plus $0.10 vs Basic $0.02: what Sume covers
Photoroom Basic removes backgrounds at $0.02 an image; Plus adds AI backgrounds, shadows and try-on at $0.10. Which of those Sume covers, and which it does not.
Photoroom lists its Basic plan (Remove Background API) at $0.02 per image and Plus (Image Editing API) at $0.10 per image, which is $20 and $100 for 1,000 images. Plus adds AI backgrounds, AI shadows, ghost mannequin, virtual try-on and product staging. Sume's image docs cover generated transparent stills and reference-based edits, but I found no ghost mannequin or virtual try-on route.
What Photoroom lists
The Basic plan includes remove background, crop and resize, color backgrounds, green screen despill and uncertainty scoring, with 10 free production calls. The Plus plan includes the Basic features plus AI backgrounds, shadows, expand, ghost mannequin, virtual try-on and product staging, with 1,000 monthly sandbox calls that return watermarked results. If you use one plan but call the other, you pay that call's price.
| Photoroom plan | Per image | 1,000 images | Notable features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $0.02 | $20.00 | Remove background, crop, color backgrounds, despill |
| Plus | $0.10 | $100.00 | AI backgrounds, shadows, expand, ghost mannequin, try-on |
| Enterprise | volume pricing | 200K images a year minimum | All APIs incl. image to video |
Where Sume overlaps
The Sume image docs describe background auto, transparent or opaque and an optional mask_url on ChatGPT Image 2.5, and say that for other models transparent stills stay on Image 1.0 with transparency true. Unsupported parameters return 400 unsupported_parameter rather than being silently ignored. Per-image prices come from the catalog and are provider list times 1.25.
Steps: test a product shot
- Pick three representative product photos.
- Run them through Photoroom Plus sandbox for the watermarked baseline.
- Submit an image job on Sume with a prompt and the reference, requesting a transparent or new background.
- Compare edge quality and cost per image from usage.cost.
What Sume does not do
Sume does not offer a dedicated remove-background API, ghost mannequin, virtual try-on or AI shadow product in the docs I read. A generative model may recreate a scene, but it does not preserve a pixel-exact cutout the way a matting API is meant to.
Use the sandbox to settle edge quality
Photoroom's Plus tier includes 1,000 monthly sandbox calls with watermarked results, which is enough to compare edge quality on a hundred of your own photos without paying. Do the same on Sume with a small funded balance. Look at hair, glass, shadows and thin straps. If the generated version changes the product's shape or logo, it is not a cutout, and for a catalog that is disqualifying no matter the price.
Enterprise and volume
Photoroom lists an Enterprise tier with a minimum of 200K images a year, access to all APIs including image to video and visual QA, and volume discounts on an annual commitment. That is where very large catalogs land. Sume lists no volume tier in the docs I read, so at six-figure image counts you would ask both sides for a quote and compare it with the measured per-image cost.
Verdict
For cutouts at volume, Photoroom Basic at two cents is the straightforward answer. For generating new scenes around a product from a prompt, use Sume. Do not assume the two give identical edges.
Sources
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Written by Sume