FLUX — Black Forest Labs' FLUX image and video generation models, from a free Apache-2.0 open-weight model to pay-as-you-go API access.
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FLUX in 20 seconds
Best for: developers wanting a free, commercially-licensed open-weight image model or pay-as-you-go API access
Pricing: FLUX.1 [schnell] is free (Apache-2.0); API billed pay-as-you-go, video at $0.17/second.
- FLUX.1 [schnell] is free and Apache-2.0 licensed for commercial self-hosting.
- FLUX.1 [dev] and editing models are free for non-commercial use only.
- API video generation costs $0.17/second, pay-as-you-go with no subscription.
- Commercial open-weights licensing tiers (Builder, Platform, Professional, Enterprise) require contacting sales for pricing.
Limitations: Most commercial licensing tiers don't list public USD prices.; Higher-quality [dev] models are non-commercial without a paid license.; Self-hosting requires GPU infrastructure most users don't have.
Top alternatives: Midjourney, Stability AI, OpenAI, Adobe Firefly — full list
What is FLUX?
FLUX is Black Forest Labs' family of generative AI models, spanning text-to-image generation, image editing, and, with FLUX 3, native video, audio, and robotics action-prediction from a single multimodal model. Models are distributed three ways: as downloadable open weights for self-hosting, through a browser-based cloud playground for experimentation, and via a production API for integrating generation into other products. Licensing varies by model: FLUX.1 [schnell] is released under Apache-2.0, making it free to self-host and use commercially with no royalty; FLUX.1 [dev] and its editing variants (Fill, Canny, Depth, Redux, Kontext, Krea) and associated LoRAs are free to download but licensed for non-commercial use only unless a paid commercial license is purchased. API usage is billed pay-as-you-go with published per-second rates for video generation ($0.17/second, no subscription or seat fees), while commercial open-weights licensing for the newer FLUX.2 [klein] and [dev] models is sold in named tiers (Builder, Platform, Professional, Enterprise, and a Synthetic Data tier for training-data rights) differentiated by monthly image quotas and number of allowed domains, with exact pricing available only by contacting sales.
FLUX is Black Forest Labs' family of generative AI models for image, video, audio, and (in FLUX 3) multimodal action-prediction, offered as open weights, a cloud playground, and a production API. FLUX.1 [schnell] is free and Apache-2.0 licensed for self-hosting and commercial use; FLUX.1 [dev] and related editing models (Fill, Canny, Depth, Redux, Kontext, Krea) are free to download but restricted to non-commercial use without a separate commercial license. API access is billed pay-as-you-go with no subscription or seat fees — video generation costs $0.17/second, so a 5-second clip runs $0.85 — while commercial open-weights licensing is sold in tiers (Builder, Platform, Professional, Enterprise) with volume-based image quotas and custom pricing available only through Black Forest Labs' sales team.
Standout feature: FLUX.1 [schnell] is a genuinely free, Apache-2.0-licensed model that can be self-hosted and used commercially with no royalty, unlike most competing frontier image models that are API-only or non-commercial by default.
Biggest weakness: Most of the commercial licensing tiers (Builder, Platform, Professional, Enterprise) don't list actual USD prices on the pricing page, requiring a purchase flow or sales contact to learn the real cost, and the higher-quality [dev] models are non-commercial unless that separate paid license is bought.
Pros
- FLUX.1 [schnell] is Apache-2.0 licensed: free to self-host and use commercially with no royalty.
- Pay-as-you-go API pricing has no subscription or seat fees.
- Model lineup spans image, video, audio, and (FLUX 3) action-prediction from one architecture family.
- Open weights let teams fine-tune and run models on their own infrastructure instead of depending on an API.
Cons
- Commercial licensing tiers (Builder, Platform, Professional, Enterprise) don't list USD prices; most require a purchase flow or sales contact.
- The higher-quality FLUX.1 [dev] and editing models are non-commercial by default unless a separate paid license is purchased.
- Self-hosting open-weight models requires GPU infrastructure and ML tooling most non-technical users don't have.
- API image-generation pricing isn't published alongside the video per-second rate, making cost estimation harder for image-heavy workloads.
FLUX pricing
Free · verified from the vendor's pricing page
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| FLUX.1 [schnell] (open weights) | Free | Apache-2.0 licensed; free to download, self-host, and use commercially with no royalty. |
| FLUX.1 [dev] and editing models (open weights) | Free | Free to download for non-commercial use; a separate paid commercial license is required for commercial use. |
| API (pay-as-you-go) | Custom | No subscription or seat fees; video generation billed at $0.17/second (a 5-second clip costs $0.85). Image generation is billed per-call at rates not disclosed on the pricing page. |
| Builder (commercial open-weights license) | Custom | FLUX.2 [klein] models, 10,000 images/month, 1 domain, fine-tuning rights included. Exact price requires purchase or contacting sales. |
| Enterprise (commercial open-weights license) | Custom | All models plus new releases, custom volume, permissive commercial use. Custom pricing via sales. |
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