Leonardo.Ai generates images and video from its own models and a large roster of other companies' models, with a daily free token allowance and five subscription tiers on top. What decides whether it suits you is how much control you want over a generation, since its own models expose seed, negative prompt and pose guidance directly.
What is Leonardo.Ai?
Leonardo.Ai is made by Leonardo Interactive Pty Ltd, based in Australia, and is now a Canva brand. It runs on the web, and on iOS and Android apps. Leonardo builds its own models, Lucid Origin, Lucid Realism and Phoenix, and alongside them hosts a large roster of other companies' models.
What Leonardo.Ai generates
Lucid Origin is Leonardo's newest own model, described for its prompt adherence and text rendering in generated images. Base generation through the API goes up to 2048 by 2048 pixels; a separate Pro Upscaler reaches up to 105 megapixels. Style Reference and Composition Reference panels guide a generation from an uploaded image, and character consistency is a named feature for keeping visuals aligned across a set of images.
Generation parameters include a fixed seed for reproducibility, a negative prompt field, and prompt enhancement that can be set to automatic, on or off. An Image Editor and Omni Editing tool edit an existing image with text prompts, and a background remover uses remove.bg's API. Custom models can be trained on your own images, with a personal model count that scales by plan. There is no vector output.
Beyond its own models, Leonardo hosts a large roster of other companies' image and video models, including FLUX, GPT Image, Nano Banana, Ideogram, Seedream, Recraft, Kling and others.
Working with other people
Leonardo runs on the web at app.leonardo.ai, and on iOS and Android. A pay-as-you-go API is available separately from the subscription plans, and Team plans are billed per seat.
Leonardo.Ai pricing: what each plan gives
The Free plan costs nothing and gives 150 Fast Tokens a day plus a 150 Token Bank, with public creations only, Basic quality settings and 1 personal collection. There is no free trial of a paid plan.
Essential costs $12 a month ($10 a month billed yearly) and gives 8,500 Fast Tokens a month plus a 25,500 Token Bank. Premium costs $30 a month ($24 a month billed yearly). Ultimate costs $60 a month ($48 a month billed yearly). Team Starter costs $24 a user a month, and Team Growth costs $48 a user a month; no separate yearly rate is shown for either Team plan. A pay-as-you-go API is priced separately, with no monthly commitment.
Rights and privacy
Leonardo's terms of service page would not render on any pass, so nothing here can be said about commercial use, output ownership or indemnity for a Leonardo image.
Content generated privately is not used for Leonardo's model training; private generation requires any paid subscription plan, while free-plan content is public by default. Leonardo processes personal data in line with the GDPR and the UK Data Protection Act.
Who Leonardo.Ai suits
Leonardo.Ai suits people who want fine control over their own generations, seed, negative prompt and prompt enhancement among them, plus access to a large roster of other companies' models in the same account, on web, iOS or Android.
It suits less well anyone who needs vector output, since Leonardo does not offer it, or anyone on the free plan who wants their generations kept private, since that requires a paid subscription.
Screenshots
How Leonardo.Ai compares
Leonardo.Ai scores 8.0 out of 10 among the AI image generators we rate. These three do the same job and are the closest to it, compared on what each vendor publishes.
Midjourney
Daily free tokens are part of Leonardo's standing plan; Midjourney has no free tier at all and starts at $10 a month instead. Leonardo also does one-action background removal and offers a public API, both missing from Midjourney. Midjourney's own generations stay private only on its Pro and Mega plans, while Leonardo needs any paid plan, starting at $12 a month, to do the same.
Pick Midjourney if you don't mind paying from the start for private generations.
Pick Leonardo.Ai if you want a free plan, background removal or an API.
Adobe Firefly
Leonardo gives you a fixed seed, negative prompts and automatic prompt rewriting on top of personal AI models to train depending on plan, extras Firefly's own generator skips. Firefly counters on privacy: its terms say it does not train on what you make, while Leonardo trains on your uploads unless you opt out. Firefly also exports true vector files, a format Leonardo's API does not produce.
Pick Adobe Firefly if you want training off by default and vector file exports.
Pick Leonardo.Ai if you want a reusable seed, prompt rewriting or personal AI models.
Ideogram
Leonardo's paid plans start at $12 a month; Ideogram's start at $20 a month, and both include a free tier to try first. Leonardo takes a pose, sketch or depth map as input, a control Ideogram's API reference does not list. Ideogram's Enterprise plan also indemnifies you against a copyright claim, on top of Magic Prompt to rewrite your wording on any paid tier.
Pick Ideogram if you want Magic Prompt or Enterprise-level copyright indemnity.
Pick Leonardo.Ai if you want pose or depth map control at a lower entry price.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Leonardo.Ai cost?
There is a free plan with 150 Fast Tokens a day. Paid plans start at Essential for $12 a month ($10 a month billed yearly), rising through Premium and Ultimate to $60 a month ($48 a month billed yearly), alongside separate Team and pay-as-you-go API pricing.
Does Leonardo.Ai generate its own models or other companies'?
Both. Leonardo builds Lucid Origin, Lucid Realism and Phoenix, and also hosts a large roster of other companies' models, including FLUX, GPT Image, Nano Banana, Ideogram, Seedream, Recraft and Kling.
Can I control a Leonardo generation with a seed or negative prompt?
Yes. Leonardo's own models accept a fixed seed for reproducibility, a negative prompt field, and prompt enhancement that can be set to automatic, on or off.
Are my Leonardo generations private?
Only on a paid plan. Private generation is not used for model training and is available with any paid subscription; free-plan content is public by default.
