GPT Image 2.5, 2, 1.5 and 1: Prices, Free Access and Which to Use

Short answer first. GPT Image 2 costs $30 per million image output tokens on OpenAI's API, which works out at about $0.053 for a medium-quality 1024x1024 image and $0.211 at high. It is not free on the API. It is free to try inside ChatGPT, within limits OpenAI sets. And for most new work it is no longer the model to pick: GPT Image 2.5 Flare, released on 8 September 2026, bills the same token rates and costs about a quarter as much per image at high quality.

OpenAI's API price list now carries five GPT Image models, plus a sixth alias, and the names do not make the order obvious. This post puts them in one table, with release dates, real per-image prices and a plain answer on which one to use. Every figure was checked against OpenAI's own pages on 12 October 2026, and every Studio price comes from the Studio's live price table rather than from memory.

Every GPT Image Version, In Order

Image input runs $8 per million tokens on every model from 1.5 upwards, $10 on GPT Image 1 and $2.50 on GPT Image 1 mini. Text input is $5 per million on all of them except the mini ($2). OpenAI's Batch API halves each of these rates, for work that can wait. A sixth entry on the price list, chatgpt-image-latest, carries GPT Image 1.5's rates.

Two of those release dates come from OpenAI's own announcements: GPT Image 2 arrived in the API and Codex on 21 April 2026, the same day as ChatGPT Images 2.0, and the GPT Image 2.5 pair arrived on 8 September 2026 with ChatGPT Images 2.5. GPT Image 1.5's date is the one on its API snapshot, gpt-image-1.5-2025-12-16.

What One Image Actually Costs

Token rates are not a price per image, so here is the conversion for a square 1024x1024 image. GPT Image 1 and 1.5 come from OpenAI's model pages, which publish per-image figures. GPT Image 2 comes from fal's price table for the model. GPT Image 2.5 is arithmetic on its fixed output tokens per tier, which we set out in full in GPT Image 2.5: Flare vs Sunburst.

The interesting line is GPT Image 2. Its token rates are identical to 2.5's, but it spends far more output tokens at medium and high, so the same quality setting costs roughly four times as much. That is why "the newest model is the expensive one" does not hold here. It is the reverse. At high quality, the newest model is the cheapest of the four.

Portrait and landscape shapes cost more on 1 and 1.5 ($0.25 and $0.20 at high, for 1024x1536). GPT Image 2's 4K output at 3840x2160 costs $0.401 at high on fal's table. Prompt text adds a fraction of a cent, and uploaded images for edits bill as input tokens on top.

Is Any of It Free?

There are three separate questions hiding in "is GPT Image 2 free", and they have different answers.

On OpenAI's API: no. Not a single free image. The price list carries paid rates only, and OpenAI's image guide warns that you may need to complete API Organization Verification before you can call the GPT Image models at all.

Inside ChatGPT: yes, within limits. OpenAI made ChatGPT Images 2.0 available on all tiers at launch, with the "thinking" image mode kept for paid plans, and announced that ChatGPT Images 2.5 was "rolling out today to all ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex users". Free accounts get a daily allowance that OpenAI sets and changes. We could not find a fixed number on any OpenAI page, so treat any figure you read elsewhere as a third-party observation.

In the AIVideos Studio: a small amount, every day. Until you buy your first credit pack, your balance is topped up to 9 credits a day with no card. That is three GPT Image 2.5 Flare or Sunburst images at Standard, or one GPT Image 2 image. Free images carry a small watermark, and any pack removes it. The same allowance covers edits: upload an image and describe the change, and the first input image costs nothing extra. Our roundup of the best free AI image generators in 2026 compares this with the other free options.

How to Use GPT Image 2 in ChatGPT

Since 8 September, ChatGPT itself runs ChatGPT Images 2.5 rather than 2.0, so you are not choosing a version in the app. You describe the image in a normal chat message, or upload a picture and ask for a change. OpenAI's 2.5 launch notes add comment-based edits, where you mark the part of an image you want changed, and say details now hold more consistently across several rounds of edits.

That is the whole process. If you need GPT Image 2 specifically, for a workflow already tuned to it, the API is the route, under the model name gpt-image-2. In the Studio it sits on the GPT Image tile as version 2, beside 2.5 Flare and Sunburst.

Which Version to Use

GPT Image 2.5 Flare for almost everything new. It is the fast, general model, and at high quality it is the cheapest GPT Image there is.

GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst when the image already exists and one thing must change while everything else holds: a product that cannot shift, a label that must stay legible, a headline swap on a finished layout. It costs the same as Flare and takes longer, on purpose.

GPT Image 2 if you have prompts and settings that already work on it and no time to re-test them. Otherwise, skip it.

GPT Image 1.5 and 1 only for pipelines already validated on them. OpenAI's own prompting guide now keeps 1.5 for existing, validated workflows while they migrate, and GPT Image 1 for legacy compatibility only.

GPT Image 1 mini for high-volume drafts through the API, where its $8 output rate matters more than quality. The Studio does not run it.

What the Studio Charges

The Studio runs three of these: GPT Image 2.5 Flare, GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst and GPT Image 2, on one tile with a version switch.

Standard, High and Ultra map to OpenAI's medium, high and xhigh. Edits on 2.5 take up to four input images and edits on GPT Image 2 up to sixteen; on both, the first image is included and each extra one adds 1 credit, because OpenAI bills every uploaded image as input tokens. Up to four images per batch, each at the tier price. The Render Ledger lists the provider cost beside every credit price if you want to check the margin yourself.

GPT Image vs Nano Banana

This is the comparison most people are actually searching for, and we will not pretend to a winner we have not tested. On price, at the Studio's cheapest setting, GPT Image 2.5 Flare costs 3 credits and Nano Banana 2.1 costs 4. At the top, Flare's Ultra tier costs 8 and a 4K Nano Banana 2.1 image costs 10. Nano Banana Pro starts at 9.

The two families price on different axes, which matters more than the numbers. GPT Image's tiers are quality settings at a chosen shape. Nano Banana's are output sizes. If you need a 4K file, Nano Banana or SeeDream 5 gives you one directly. If you need text that has to read correctly, both Google and OpenAI claim strong text rendering, and the honest move is to run one brief on each. Our Nano Banana 2.1 vs 2 vs Pro guide covers Google's side in the same detail as this post.

Prompts That Work on GPT Image

"Best GPT Image 2 prompts" lists are mostly someone else's subject matter. What transfers is structure, and OpenAI's own prompting guide for the GPT Image models is specific about it:

• Keep a fixed order: scene or background, then subject, then key details, then constraints.
• Quote the words you want rendered, or set them in capitals, so the model can tell copy from instruction. Spell unusual brand names letter by letter.
• For edits, say "change only X" and "keep everything else the same", and repeat the list of things to preserve on every round, which OpenAI says reduces drift.
• Write "photorealistic" when you want a photograph, rather than hoping the style follows.
• Change one thing per follow-up. Start from a clean base prompt and refine in small steps.

A brief written that way, for a product still:

Seamless warm-grey studio backdrop, soft key light from upper left. A matte black ceramic coffee cup on a polished concrete plinth, faint steam. The cup carries the word "HARTLEY" in small white capitals. Photorealistic, 50mm, shallow depth of field. No other text, no props, no reflections of the photographer.

Then the edit, on Sunburst: "Change only the backdrop to deep forest green. Keep the cup, the plinth, the lighting, the steam and the word HARTLEY exactly the same."

GPT Image Questions, Answered

How much does GPT Image 2 cost? On OpenAI's API, GPT Image 2 bills $30 per million image output tokens, $8 per million image input tokens and $5 per million text input tokens. fal's price table for the same model works that out at about $0.006, $0.053 and $0.211 for a 1024x1024 image at low, medium and high quality. In the AIVideos Studio, GPT Image 2 costs 5 credits at Standard and 12 at High.

Is GPT Image 2 free? Not on OpenAI's API, whose price list carries paid rates only. Inside ChatGPT, OpenAI made ChatGPT Images 2.0 available on every tier when it launched on 21 April 2026, and ChatGPT Images 2.5 rolled out to all ChatGPT users on 8 September 2026, with free-account limits that OpenAI sets and does not publish as a fixed number. In the AIVideos Studio, a free account is topped up to 9 credits a day until its first purchase, which covers three GPT Image 2.5 Flare images or one GPT Image 2 image at Standard, with a small watermark.

When was GPT Image 2 released? OpenAI released GPT Image 2 on 21 April 2026, in the API and in Codex, alongside ChatGPT Images 2.0. Its API snapshot is gpt-image-2-2026-04-21. GPT Image 2.5 followed on 8 September 2026 as two models, Flare and Sunburst. GPT Image 1.5's snapshot is dated 16 December 2025, and GPT Image 1 reached the API in April 2025.

What is the difference between GPT Image 1.5 and GPT Image 2? GPT Image 2 is the newer model, and OpenAI's prompting guide names it the recommended default for new builds while keeping GPT Image 1.5 for existing workflows during migration. OpenAI's launch notes for GPT Image 2 claim better text-heavy visuals such as diagrams and posters, multilingual text, more reliable instruction following and more aspect ratios. On price, GPT Image 1.5 bills $32 per million image output tokens against $30 for GPT Image 2.

Which GPT Image model should I use? For new work, GPT Image 2.5 Flare. It is OpenAI's newest everyday model, it bills the same token rates as GPT Image 2, and at high quality it works out at roughly a quarter of GPT Image 2's per-image cost. Use GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst when an existing image needs one precise change and everything else must stay put. Keep GPT Image 2 for a workflow already tuned to it. GPT Image 1.5 and 1 only make sense for pipelines that are already validated on them.

Is GPT Image better than Nano Banana? We have not run a controlled side by side, so we will not declare a winner. On price per image in the AIVideos Studio, GPT Image 2.5 Flare costs 3, 5 or 8 credits by quality tier, Nano Banana 2.1 costs 4, 5 or 10 credits by size, and Nano Banana Pro costs 9, 9 or 18. The practical test is one brief on each, which costs less than 20 credits.

Where This Post Stops

Every price here is the provider's published rate or arithmetic on it, checked on 12 October 2026. None of it is a quality verdict: we have not run one brief through all five versions side by side. OpenAI's prompting guide is marked as archived and still describes GPT Image 2 as the default, which predates 2.5, so read its model advice with that date in mind.

Try the current pair in the Studio: three Flare images fit inside a free day. If the brief is a campaign rather than a test, our production team takes it from there.