Is Midjourney free? The best free alternatives instead
Midjourney has no free plan. What you can do for free with Leonardo, Ideogram, chat assistants' image tools and ComfyUI, plus what to watch for on commercial rights and privacy.
Midjourney is still the first AI image tool many people think of. The light, the texture, the "artistic" feel really are good. But here's the other side: Midjourney has no free plan. According to its official help pages, every plan is a subscription; the cheapest, Basic, is $10 a month ($8 a month billed yearly). You need to enter card details even just to try it.
This piece covers the free tools that let you do similar work without paying for Midjourney, and which one makes sense for which job. It's the second article in our free alternatives series.
What do you actually want from Midjourney?
Answer this before picking an alternative, because "like Midjourney" means something different to everyone.
Good-looking images: things for Pinterest, a mood board or a blog header, where "it looks nice" is enough. Free tools do a good job here.
Images with text in them: posters, flyers, logo drafts, social cards. Midjourney isn't the best option for this anyway; other tools are better at putting clean text into an image.
Consistent characters and style: producing the same character across scenes for a comic, a children's book or a brand. This is the hardest job, and on the free side the route that takes the most effort is a local setup.
Commercial use: work you'll deliver to a client or sell. Here the licence text matters more than anything.
The free alternatives
Leonardo.Ai: free daily tokens
According to Leonardo's official pricing page, the Free plan gives 150 fast tokens a day, with model choice limited to Auto. Your creations may be public. It's enough for daily experiments, social drafts and developing ideas. The interface is far easier to grasp than Midjourney's early Discord days; you open it in the browser and start typing.
The limit: private generation, more models and personal model training are on paid plans. Per Leonardo's FAQ, paid subscribers own their generations; rights on the free plan differ. Read the terms before using free-plan images for commercial work. Details on our Leonardo tool page.
Ideogram: images with text
Ideogram made its name by putting legible text into images. For posters, invitations, covers and T-shirt designs it can be more useful than Midjourney. Per its pricing page, free accounts receive weekly credits when signing in with Google, Apple or Microsoft; the amount may vary. On the free plan, images are published to the community gallery by default; unpublishing and deleting are paid features.
A note: accented and non-Latin characters sometimes come out garbled. For important work, it's safer to add the text afterwards in a design app.
Image generation in chat assistants
ChatGPT's free plan includes image creation, but it's limited. Gemini can also generate images with a Google account; limits change from time to time. Microsoft's Copilot offers image generation too. The nice part is that you can fix things by chatting: "make the background a bit darker, remove the cup from his hand" is easier than rewriting a long prompt.
The weak side: artistic style control isn't as fine as Midjourney's, and daily output is capped. Enough for a few images a week, not dozens a day.
ComfyUI: free software, your own computer
If you want something genuinely unlimited and genuinely free, the answer is a local setup. ComfyUI is open source and free, and runs open-weight image models on your own machine. No limits, no cloud, your images aren't shared with anyone. For advanced work such as consistent characters, batch production in a set style, or working with your own photos, it's the most powerful free option.
The price: a good graphics card and time to learn. The node-based interface looks intimidating at first. But starting from ready-made workflows, you can get your first image in an evening. Step-by-step setup is in our ComfyUI install guide. Read the licence of every model you use; some aren't open for commercial use.
Choosing by job
Blog and social images: Leonardo's free plan, or image generation in ChatGPT or Gemini. Quick, easy, good enough.
Posters, covers, images with text: Ideogram. But always check the text.
Consistent characters, batches, privacy: ComfyUI. It takes effort, but there's no ceiling.
Client work: not on a free plan, but on a paid plan with a clear licence. More on that below.
For a broader list, see our guide to free image generators.
Prompt tips to get closer to the Midjourney look
Much of Midjourney's "feel" comes from its default aesthetic: soft light, cinematic framing, rich texture. In other tools you have to describe it in the prompt.
Name the light: "golden hour", "soft window light", "misty morning". Name the framing: "wide angle", "close-up", "low angle". Name the material: "35mm film grain", "watercolour", "oil paint texture". And say what you don't want, if the tool supports it: "no text, no watermark".
Another tip: don't expect perfection in one go. Generate four or five variations, pick the best and refine from there. That's how Midjourney users actually work too.
For ready-made image prompts, see our prompts page.
What to watch out for with free images
Public by default: on Leonardo's and Ideogram's free plans, images may be public by default. For a client's unannounced product, that's a real problem. On Midjourney, Stealth Mode is only on the Pro and Mega plans, so images on the cheapest Midjourney plan are public too.
Commercial rights: rights can differ between free and paid plans of the same tool. For a T-shirt you'll sell or a logo you'll hand over, read the terms of use. Midjourney's help page also says companies with more than $1,000,000 in annual gross revenue must be on the Pro or Mega plan.
Real people and brands: free or paid, images using a well-known person's face or another brand's logo carry legal risk.
Logos: registering an AI-generated logo as a trademark isn't straightforward everywhere. Use AI at the idea stage for logos, and have the final version drawn by a designer or in a vector app.
When to pay for Midjourney
Midjourney still stands out in places: its default aesthetic, style references and the huge archive of inspiration its community produces. If you make images every day, need a particular artistic style and don't have time to learn ComfyUI, the Basic plan at $10 a month is a reasonable start. Unlimited slow generation (Relax) starts on the Standard plan.
But before deciding, spend a week with the free tools. If you can say clearly what they can't do for you, you've got a good reason to pay. You can compare paid plans of other image tools side by side on our pricing page.
Quick answers
Is Midjourney free?
No. According to its help pages, every plan is a subscription; the cheapest, Basic, is $10 a month.
What's the closest free tool to Midjourney?
Leonardo's free plan for ease and aesthetics, ComfyUI for full control and unlimited output.
Can I use free-generated images commercially?
It depends on the tool and the plan. Don't use them in client work or products without reading the terms.
Which is good for putting text in an image?
Ideogram is strong at this. Still check the spelling; add the text afterwards if needed.
Tool pages: Leonardo.Ai, ComfyUI, ChatGPT, Gemini. The rest of the series is on the free alternatives page.
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