Short verdict: Midjourney for the highest artistic quality, but no free plan and a $10 starting price. Leonardo.ai gives you 150 free tokens a day, and its cheapest paid plan at $12 includes commercial rights.

Choose Midjourney if

  • Artistic quality matters most (design, art, brand visuals).
  • You generate a lot: Standard at $30 includes unlimited Relax mode.
  • You'll pay yearly: 20% off (Standard at $24/month).

Choose Leonardo.ai if

  • You want to try it free before paying.
  • Budget is tight and you need commercial rights (Apprentice at $12).
  • You want fine control over models and settings.

Mind the commercial rights

Leonardo's free images are public and carry no commercial rights. On Midjourney, companies with more than $1M in yearly revenue must use Pro or Mega for commercial use. The wider comparison (with Ideogram, ChatGPT and Gemini) is in AI image generator prices.

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