Craiyon Review 2026: Is the Old DALL-E Mini Worth $120 to $840 a Year?

The short verdict

Craiyon is still a good free toy and a reasonable cheap tool for casual, non-sensitive images. It is a harder sell as a paid product. The $120 Supporter plan removes watermarks and attribution but keeps your images public, the plans are sold with no refunds and no paid trial, there is no public API, and the terms give Craiyon a perpetual licence to every prompt and image you make.

• Best for: hobbyists, students and social posts where public images are fine.
• Worth paying for: Professional at $240 a year, and only if you need private images or regular retouching.
• Skip it if: you need client confidentiality, an API, a mobile app or clear ownership of outputs.

From DALL-E mini to a paid image suite

DALL-E mini was released in June 2021 by Boris Dayma and won the Hugging Face x Google hackathon. It went viral the following year, and in 2022 it was renamed Craiyon after OpenAI asked for a name change. Dayma is still the CEO. The operator is Craiyon LLC, a Delaware company based in Houston, Texas.

It is a small company. Tracxn lists it as unfunded, with six employees and co-founders Boris Dayma and Sajid Sharif. Craiyon's about page claims more than 3 billion images created, more than 1 million monthly active users and roughly 435,000 images in a single week. It also says Craiyon builds its own image models: v3, v4 and v5 are live, and v6 is marked 'coming soon' with a newsletter signup and no date.

The site has grown well beyond one prompt box. The menu lists Image, Logo, Anime, Tattoo, Home design and Poster generators, plus a background remover, Studio and image search, and you can order results as merchandise such as t-shirts and mugs.

Pricing: $120, $240 or $840 a year

Craiyon lists three paid plans, each priced as a yearly total. On annual billing that works out to $10, $20 and $70 a month. A Monthly/Yearly toggle on the page marks yearly as '17% off', but the monthly-billing price is only shown at checkout, so we cannot quote it.

• Supporter - $120 a year: unlimited images, 100 edit credits a month, Animate, Upscale, Vectorize, no watermarks, no attribution, HD downloads. Generated images are public.
• Professional - $240 a year (labelled 'Most popular'): everything in Supporter, 220 edit credits a month, private images, priority queue and early access to new features.
• Ultra - $840 a year: everything in Professional with 900 edit credits a month.

What edit credits actually cover

Text-to-image generation is unlimited on every paid plan and uses no credits. Credits are spent only when you retouch an image or use an image as input. They refresh monthly on your billing date, even on yearly plans, and they do not roll over. Extra credit packs can be bought from your account, but Craiyon does not publish their prices.

Prices have gone up

In July 2024 the same page listed Supporter at $5 a month billed yearly and Professional at $20. Supporter has since doubled to $10, Professional has held at $20, and the $70-a-month Ultra tier is new.

Plan names also matter. Craiyon's own FAQ says the Professional plan is the one that 'keeps your images completely private'. The feature table confirms that Supporter gets no private images, no priority queue and no early access. If privacy is your reason to pay, Supporter is the wrong plan.

What the free tier still gives you

You can still use Craiyon without an account or a card, and that is the only way to try it, since there is no free trial of the paid plans. The free tier has clear limits, which Craiyon describes as 'base quality images, watermarks, may experience wait times'.

• Square images only. Portrait and landscape are a paid feature.
• Watermarked, base-quality downloads.
• Waits during peak times, while subscribers get priority access.
• A 'limited number of images and functionality', with no number published.
• Commercial use is allowed, but you must credit Craiyon. The logo in the corner of the image counts as credit.

Third-party pricing tracker costbench reports that free users get two Pro generations a day, unlimited Lite generations and one to two minute waits. Craiyon does not confirm those numbers, so treat them as a rough guide.

Models, styles and editing tools

Generation starts with a prompt and a style: Artistic, Photo, Anime, Illustration, Vector or Raw. An 'Excluded' field works as a negative prompt for things you do not want in the image. Output quality has moved a long way since the blurry DALL-E mini grids, though it still trails the leading paid generators on fine detail and text.

Retouch

Retouch is where edit credits go. You give plain-language instructions such as 'add sunglasses' or 'make it look real', and you can extend a square image into portrait. Pro subscribers can also add text directly onto the image.

Background remover, upscaler and Image to SVG

The background remover accepts any uploaded image, not just Craiyon output, and returns a transparent PNG or a white or black background. The upscaler and Image to SVG converter round out a toolkit aimed at quick social graphics, logos and stickers. 'Animate' appears on every paid plan card, but Craiyon gives no further detail about it.

Studio

Licence, privacy and refunds: the fine print

Craiyon gets a perpetual licence to your work

The terms grant Craiyon 'a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicensable, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license' to reproduce, adapt and publicly display your prompts and every image produced at your direction. The terms never state that you own your outputs. Commercial use is permitted on any account, but this licence applies to paid users too.

The privacy policy is thin

Craiyon's privacy policy mostly covers cookies and analytics. It says the site does not sell or rent collected information, with exceptions for service providers, legal demands, aggregated statistics and mergers. It names Google Analytics, Google Adsense, Taboola and RevContent as possible services, and allows sharing non-personal and aggregated data for advertising. It does not say how long prompts and images are kept, whether they are used for training, or how to delete your account yourself.

No refunds

All purchases, subscriptions and credit packs alike, are final and non-refundable, with no refunds for partly used billing periods. Cancelling takes one click in account settings and access runs to the end of the term, which on a yearly plan can be eleven months away. Subscriptions cannot be shared, disputes go to JAMS arbitration in Houston under Texas law, and Craiyon does not guarantee generation speed.

No public API

Craiyon says it does not have a public API 'at the moment' but will offer one 'in the near future'. There is no way to plug it into a workflow today.

What users say

Public reviews are thin. Trustpilot showed 3.8 out of 5 from only nine reviews, too few to draw firm conclusions. The complaints match the fine print: one April 2026 review says 'This company has no way to get support for purchases', and a January 2026 review says it 'Seems to get the stupidest little things wrong even when the instructions are crystal clear.' On the positive side, a five-star review praises it as free with no trial or sign-up.

How it compares

Craiyon sits between free generators and the premium tools. Microsoft's Bing Image Creator is free. DeepAI Pro now costs $9.99 a month, as covered in our DeepAI review. Midjourney starts at $10 a month and produces noticeably more polished images, as our Midjourney review explains. Craiyon's Supporter plan costs the same $10 a month but leaves your images public, which is its main weakness against both.

Craiyon's advantages are the unlimited text-to-image generation on every paid tier, a simple browser interface with no Discord or setup, and handy extras like the background remover and Image to SVG in one place.

Which tier, if any, to buy

• Stay free if you make occasional images for fun or personal posts and do not mind square format, watermarks and waits.
• Supporter ($120 a year) only makes sense if you want watermark-free, attribution-free commercial images and are fine with them being public.
• Professional ($240 a year) is the plan to buy if you pay at all: private images, priority queue and 220 edit credits a month.
• Ultra ($840 a year) is only for heavy retouching. 900 credits a month is a lot, and at that price a stronger tool may serve you better.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Craiyon cost in 2026?

Craiyon's paid plans cost $120, $240 or $840 a year, which is $10, $20 or $70 a month on annual billing. A monthly billing option exists, but its price is only shown at checkout.

Is Craiyon still free?

Yes, you can generate images for free without signing up. Free images are square only, watermarked, base quality and may involve waits at busy times, and Craiyon does not publish the exact free limit.

Can I use Craiyon images commercially?

Yes, on any account type, as long as you follow the terms. Free users must credit Craiyon, and the corner logo counts as credit; subscribers can use images without attribution. Craiyon keeps a perpetual licence to your prompts and images either way.

Are my Craiyon images private?

Only on the Professional and Ultra plans. Supporter-plan images are public, as are free images according to third-party reports.

Can I get a refund or cancel?

You can cancel in one click, but you will not get a refund. All subscriptions and credit packs are final, and access continues to the end of the paid term.

Does Craiyon have an API or a mobile app?

No to both. Craiyon says a public API is planned for 'the near future' and a mobile app is 'coming soon', with no dates.

Do edit credits roll over?

No. Credits refresh monthly on your billing date, including on yearly plans, and unused credits are lost. Text-only generation never uses credits.

Key takeaways

• Craiyon's paid plans cost $120, $240 and $840 a year, and all include unlimited text-to-image.
• Supporter images are public; only Professional and Ultra are private.
• Edit credits (100, 220 or 900 a month) are only for retouching and image input, and do not roll over.
• All sales are non-refundable and there is no paid trial, so test on the free tier first.
• Craiyon takes a perpetual licence to your prompts and images, and its privacy policy is silent on retention and training.
• There is no public API and no mobile app yet.