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About this tool
Work out the true cost of one usable AI image after rejected attempts, retouch passes and review time.
Cost per usable image is the total spend on a generation run divided by the number of images good enough to ship, not the price of a single render. This calculator takes your render count, price per render, acceptance rate, retouch passes and human review time, then returns the real unit cost, the money lost on rejected renders and the budget for a target number of finished images. It is built for designers, marketers and product teams pricing AI image work before they commit to a volume.
Open Cost Per Image Generated Calculator on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Upload or drag in the file you want to work with.
Adjust the settings and preview the result.
Download the finished file to your device.
Acceptance rate drives the result, so wasted renders show up in the unit cost instead of hiding.
Review seconds per render times your hourly cost is added, which is often larger than the API bill.
Enter how many finished images you need and get the renders and spend required to get there.
Divide total spend by the number of usable images: cost per usable image = (renders x price per render + retouch cost + review cost + fixed cost) / (renders x acceptance rate). At a 25% acceptance rate you burn four renders per keeper, so a $0.04 render costs $0.16 per shipped image before any retouch or review time.
It depends far more on the prompt than the model. A first-pass prompt often lands 10-25% of renders, while a settled prompt with a fixed style, seed and aspect ratio commonly reaches 50-80%. Track your own ratio over a few batches rather than assuming a number.
Yes, when a person is paid to cull the output. At 15 seconds per render and a $30 hourly cost, reviewing 100 renders adds $12.50 — more than three times the $4 API spend on those renders at $0.04 each. Leave the hourly rate at zero if the culling is genuinely free.
No. It assumes a flat price per render, which is how most hosted image APIs and credit packs are sold. If your provider bills per megapixel, per diffusion step or per GPU second, work out your average cost of one render first and enter that figure.
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