Midjourney vs Stability AI
Midjourney is a hosted subscription with four published tiers priced in US dollars. Stability AI mostly sells model weights under a community licence plus a credit-billed API. One is a finished service you pay for monthly, the other is something you build on, and the cost question differs: Midjourney asks which tier, Stability asks whether your company is under USD 1 million in revenue.
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Choose Midjourney ifyou are an individual creator who wants a ready subscription, can pick a tier by monthly GPU hours, and does not need to host anything.
Choose Stability AI ifyou have developers, want downloadable Stable Diffusion weights, and your organisation earns under USD 1 million a year (or will negotiate an enterprise licence).
Midjourney and Stability AI side by side
| Midjourney | Stability AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Our AI image generators rank | #13 of 13 | #7 of 13 |
| Established in | United States | United Kingdom |
| List price, 2 November 2026 | Monthly tiers of $10 (Basic), $30 (Standard), $60 (Pro) and $120 (Mega); annual billing upfront is $96, $288, $576 or $1,152 | Community licence free under USD 1M annual revenue; enterprise licence custom; API billed in credits (money value per credit not stated on the page we read) |
| Free tier | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Self-hostable | — | Yes |
| Built for | Individual creators who want a subscription tool and can choose a tier by monthly GPU hours | Technical teams that want downloadable model weights with a revenue-based licence |
| Not for | Companies above one million dollars in revenue that only want the entry tier | Non-technical buyers wanting a finished design workspace with templates |
Both are reviewed in full in our AI image generators ranking: Midjourney and Stability AI.
Where they differ
Midjourney 2 · Stability AI 3 · open 0- 01
Published price you can plan around
Midjourney lists Basic, Standard, Pro and Mega at 10, 30, 60 and 120 US dollars a month, or 96, 288, 576 and 1,152 dollars a year paid upfront. Stability's announcement page lists credit costs per call (for example 5 credits for an edit or a control call) but gives no money value per credit, so a budget cannot be built from that page alone.
Edge: Midjourney
- 02
Who may use the cheap route
Midjourney requires a firm with gross yearly turnover over 1,000,000 US dollars to buy Pro or Mega, so entry pricing is closed to larger companies. Stability's community licence is free below USD 1M annual revenue and covers the Stable Diffusion 3.5 suite and SDXL Turbo, with an enterprise licence at custom pricing above it. Both draw the same revenue line; Stability's side costs nothing under it.
Edge: Stability AI
- 03
Privacy of generated images
Stealth Mode, which keeps images private, exists only on Midjourney's Pro and Mega tiers, and sharing a folder does not change image privacy. Stability's pages we read describe no equivalent public-gallery restriction, and self-hosted weights run on your own machines. We read no statement either way about hosted API output, so this favours the self-hosted route only.
Edge: Stability AI
- 04
Running it without engineers
Midjourney is a web service: pick a plan and generate. Stability's value sits in weights and an API, which assumes someone can deploy or integrate them. The terms also name Brand Studio as a separate application, but we did not read what it includes.
Edge: Midjourney
- 05
Where each vendor is based
Midjourney, Inc. is at South San Francisco, California, according to its terms. Stability AI Ltd is registered in London and serves UK, EU and Switzerland users; a Delaware company serves everyone else. For a European buyer the contracting entity differs, which matters for some procurement rules.
Edge: Stability AI
When neither fits
If you want a finished design workspace with templates, or pay-per-image pricing without licence tiers, look at Black Forest Labs or Recraft instead.
Midjourney or Stability AI: questions
3 answersIs Midjourney free?
No trial appears on the plans page, which makes the first month a paid one. The cheapest tier is Basic at 10 US dollars a month, or 96 dollars paid upfront for a year.
Is Stability AI free for businesses?
Only below USD 1 million in annual revenue under the community licence. Above that an enterprise licence at custom pricing is required.
Which one costs less per month for a small team?
Midjourney is the one with a clear price list. Stability's licence costs nothing for small organisations, but you provide the compute, and the hosted API is billed in credits whose money value its announcement page does not state.
Sources
Checked 2 November 2026- Midjourney tier comparison: tier amounts, Stealth Mode on Pro and Mega, company revenue condition, absence of a trial.
- Midjourney Terms of Service: South San Francisco seat.
- Midjourney changelog: sharing a folder does not change image privacy.
- Stability AI licence: community licence under USD 1M revenue, models covered, enterprise above.
- Stability AI API price update: credit-based API, credit costs from 1 August 2025, no money per credit.
- Stability AI terms of service: Stability AI Ltd in London, serves UK, EU and Switzerland, Brand Studio mentioned.