18 Image Models on Gendia: Here's How I Actually Choose Between Them

Eighteen image models is a wonderful problem to have and a genuinely annoying menu to stare at.

For a while I just used whichever one was newest, which is exactly the wrong instinct. The expensive model is often the wrong answer, and the 2.5-credit one is better than it has any right to be at the job I actually needed.

So here's how I choose now. If you've ever searched "which AI image model should I use" or "Seedream vs Nano Banana," this is the short version, organised by what you're making, not by leaderboard.

---

The cheat sheet

If you want to…	Use	Credits
Draft an idea fast	Flux Schnell / Z Image	2.5 / 5
Get a solid general image	Seedream 4.5 / Nano Banana	20
Put readable text in the picture	Ideogram V3	20–50
Change something in an existing photo	Flux Kontext / Nano Banana 2	20 / 50–90
Best all-round quality	Nano Banana Pro / GPT Image 2	75–125 / 10–200
Product shots, tight control	Seedream 5.0 Pro	30–60

---

The families, and what each is really for

Seedream (ByteDance): 20 to 60

Four of them: 4.0, 4.5, 5.0 Lite at 20, and 5.0 Pro at 30–60.

Seedream follows instructions. If you say the bottle sits left of frame with the label facing camera, that's generally what you get. This is why it does so much of the commercial work, product shots, posters, anything where things need to be where you put them.

5.0 Pro takes multiple reference images, so it's what I reach for when a real product has to appear unchanged rather than reinterpreted.

If you're making something commercial and you don't want to think about it, start here.

Nano Banana (Google): 20 to 125

Nano Banana (20), Nano Banana 2 (50–90), Nano Banana Pro (75–125).

This family is exceptional at editing. Hand it a photo, describe the change in plain words, swap the background, warm the light, remove the thing in the corner, and it changes that and leaves everything else alone. Several of Gendia's photo tools run on the edit variant underneath, which tells you how good it is at it.

Pro is one of the strongest general models anywhere, and priced like it. Don't draft on it.

GPT Image (OpenAI): 10 to 200

1.5 (20–110) and 2 (10–200). The widest price range on the platform, because quality settings really move it.

Its strength is comprehension. If your prompt is a long sentence with four conditions that all matter, GPT Image tends to respect all four where others drop one.

Flux (Black Forest Labs): 2.5 to 20

Schnell (2.5), Dev (10), Kontext Dev (20).

Schnell is the cheapest image on Gendia and my default for exploration, I'll run fifteen framings before committing to anything. Kontext is the editing variant and, at 20, the budget way to make a described change.

Ideogram V3: 20 to 50

The one for words inside the picture. Posters, packaging, signage, a headline baked into the artwork. Most models turn text into convincing gibberish; this family is built to get it right.

Qwen Image: 15

Cheap, competent, and notably good with Asian-language text and East Asian subjects.

Grok: 40

Loose and stylistic. Nice for concept work, less so when a product has to be reproduced exactly.

Z Image: 5

The second cheapest. Pair it with Schnell for drafting.

---

The two-step habit that saves the most

This is the bit that actually changed how much I spend.

Step 1: Explore on something that costs almost nothing

Run six or eight variations on Flux Schnell or Z Image. You're not making the final image. You're finding the composition, the crop, the mood, the framing: the decisions that have nothing to do with model quality.

Step 2: Re-run the winner on the model that fits the job

Now spend the credits, once, on the model suited to the task: Seedream for commercial precision, Nano Banana Pro for maximum quality, Ideogram if there's text in it.

Twenty Schnell drafts cost 50 credits. One Nano Banana Pro render costs up to 125. Doing your thinking on the cheap model is close to free, and you arrive at the expensive render already knowing what you want.

Step 3: Edit, don't re-roll

If one element is wrong, use an editing model or a photo tool. Regenerating from scratch changes everything that was already right, and you pay full price to find that out.

---

About "best"

Model leaderboards move monthly and mostly measure things that have nothing to do with your job. The questions that actually decide it:

• Does it follow instructions? Seedream, GPT Image.
• Does it edit without wrecking the rest? Nano Banana.
• Can it spell? Ideogram.
• Is it cheap enough to iterate on? Flux Schnell, Z Image.

Answer those and you'll pick well more often than by chasing whatever launched last week.

---

Go and try it

Every model runs off the same balance, so switching costs nothing but the render. Open the image generator, draft something on Flux Schnell, then run the identical prompt on Seedream and Nano Banana Pro. Ten minutes of that will teach you more than any comparison table, including this one.

For the wider field, see the best AI image generation models of 2026. For what all this costs, I worked out the whole price list.