Free AI image generators for commercial use: what the terms actually say

Free AI image generators for commercial use are not interchangeable, and the clause that decides is rarely the one in the feature list. Recraft's terms, last updated October 21, 2026, say plainly that free-tier images may not be used commercially at all. Other tools allow it, but publish your work to a public feed where strangers can remix it. Here is what six vendors' current documents say.

We read every page linked below on October 23, 2026. These documents change - Recraft's were reissued two days earlier - so check the date on the page you land on before you rely on it.

The three permissions behind free AI image generators for commercial use

"Can I use it commercially?" is really three questions, and a tool can answer them differently.

1. Output rights. May you sell, license or put the generated image in paid work? This is what most vendors mean by "commercial use".
2. Ownership and visibility. Do you own the image, or does the vendor? Is it public by default, and can other users copy it?
3. Model rights. For open-weight models you run yourself, the license on the weights is separate from the license on the pictures, and the weights are where the commercial restriction usually sits.

The third is the one we would double-check: a license can let you sell the images while forbidding you to run the model in a product at all.

Recraft's free tier is the one that says no

Recraft is the clearest no we found, and the most recently changed. Its terms of service, effective October 21, 2026, state that "Free Tier Assets are owned by Recraft and may not be sold, licensed or transferred" and that "no commercial use of Free Tier Assets is permitted". Free users get a license to use what they make "for your personal use", and the terms have you assign Recraft "all worldwide right, title and interest" in those assets.

Paid subscriptions invert that: "You own all Assets you create with the Services", and Recraft assigns you the copyright it may hold. Both tiers are barred from using assets to train AI models, and Recraft's own training license over your inputs and outputs is on by default, with an opt-out in account profile settings.

That effective date is two days old at the time of writing, so any guide published before October 21, 2026 cannot be describing these terms. In our view a client logo, a print-on-demand design or a paid thumbnail made on Recraft's free tier is exactly the use its terms exclude.

Leonardo and Ideogram allow it, but your images are public

Leonardo AI answers the question directly in its help center. Its commercial usage article, dated August 25, 2026, says "you can indeed use your images for commercial purposes" and that free-plan users "can download their own generations for commercial usage".

The condition is visibility. The same page says a free user's "design concepts will also be publicly viewable for other Leonardo users to copy and remix". For public images Leonardo retains "worldwide perpetual rights to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish", and other users get a license to access them through the service. Private generation is a paid toggle; on a paid plan with private mode on, Leonardo says users "retain full ownership, copyright, and all other intellectual property rights to their images".

Ideogram splits the answer across two documents. Its terms of service, last revised August 14, 2024, say "We do not claim any ownership rights in your User Input or User Output", assign you any rights Ideogram may acquire in the output, and do not restrict use of output "for your own purposes (including for commercial purposes)". A later clause disclaims all liability for commercial use, and a separate acceptable-use clause bars commercial use of the service itself unless expressly permitted - two clauses that sit awkwardly together. We read the output grant as the operative one for selling images, but the document is two years old and we would get written confirmation before betting a client deliverable on it.

Visibility is settled in Ideogram's documentation FAQ: "On the free plan and the legacy Basic plan, generated images are public." On Plus, Pro, Team and Enterprise, new images stay unpublished until you publish them, and unpublishing an existing image "needs a plan that includes private generation". The FAQ also declines to answer the licensing question itself, saying commercial use "depends on Ideogram's Terms of Service" and telling you to read them.

If you are generating product shots for an unannounced launch, public-by-default is the clause that should decide your plan, not the credit allowance.

Adobe Firefly sells commercial safety, with one carve-out

Adobe markets Firefly on commercial safety, and its Firefly plans FAQ states it as "Outputs from Adobe Firefly AI models are safe for commercial use", on the basis that the models are "trained on licensed content and public domain content where copyright has expired". Adobe says it has a free plan with free daily generations to try Firefly, and that generative credits reset each billing cycle and do not roll over.

The carve-out is partner models. Firefly can route a prompt to third-party models inside Adobe's interface, and the same FAQ says "You're responsible for determining whether content generated by partner models is appropriate for your project". The commercial-safety claim travels with Adobe's own models, not with everything the app can produce - so note which model made each asset if that assurance is why you chose Firefly.

Krea's own pricing page contradicts itself

Krea is the one case where we could not reach a confident answer. Its pricing page lists the Free plan at $0 a month with 100 units a day, and the feature list for that plan includes "Commercial license", described as "Use all generated content for commercial purposes including marketing, products, and client work". The FAQ on the same page lists the plans that include a commercial license as Basic, Pro, Max, Business and Enterprise - leaving the Free plan out.

One of those two statements is wrong, and we have no way to tell which. We would treat Krea's free tier as unresolved and ask support for a written answer before using free-tier output in paid work.

Open weights: the model license and the image license are different documents

Self-hosting looks like the way around plan terms, and for the images it often is. The [FLUX [dev] Non-Commercial License v2.0](https://bfl.ai/legal/non-commercial-license-terms), last updated November 25, 2025, says Black Forest Labs claims "no ownership rights in and to the Outputs" and that "You may use Output for any purpose (including for commercial purposes), except as expressly prohibited herein" - the prohibition being models trained, fine-tuned or distilled to compete with FLUX.1 [dev].

The weights are the restricted part. The same license defines non-commercial purpose to exclude use "(a) for revenue-generating activity, (b) in direct interactions with or that has impact on end users". Running FLUX.1 [dev] inside your app, for your customers, is not covered. Black Forest Labs sells that separately: its June 26, 2025 announcement says commercial licenses to its open weights models can be purchased with only a few clicks through a self-serve portal. There is also an active obligation most self-hosters miss: the license requires you to either implement content filtering or have output reviewed for unlawful or infringing content before distribution, and to disclose AI generation where applicable law requires it. If you sell into the EU, that disclosure duty connects to the EU AI Act transparency rules taking effect on December 2, 2026.

Stability AI draws the line somewhere else entirely. Its licensing page offers the Community License "For researchers, developers, small businesses, and creators with less than $1M in annual revenue", and its FAQ puts the threshold at "USD $1M annually of revenue, regardless of the source of that revenue" - your whole company's revenue, not the revenue from the images. The license covers the Core Models, which the page lists as including the Stable Diffusion 3.5 Suite, SDXL Turbo, Stable Audio 3.0 and Stable Fast 3D, and extends to derivative works such as fine-tunes and LoRAs. You own the outputs where you use them in compliance with applicable law and Stability's acceptable-use policy, and research that serves a commercial purpose requires registration with Stability AI. Above $1M in revenue you need the enterprise license. Stable Diffusion is one of 157 tools in our LLMs and AI infrastructure category as of October 2026, and this is the clause its listing cannot tell you.

Four clauses to find on any tool's terms page

The wording differs, but the same four places decide the answer, and in our view they are quick to locate once you know what to search for.

1. The output clause. Search the terms for "own" and "commercial". You are looking for who holds rights in generated assets and whether the grant is split by plan, as Recraft's is between its free tier and its paid subscriptions.
2. The default visibility setting. Search the docs, not the terms, for "public" or "private". Ideogram and Leonardo both answer this in help content rather than in the legal text, and both default free output to public.
3. The training license. Most tools take a license to train on your prompts and images. Check whether it is on by default and whether the opt-out sits in account settings, as Recraft's does.
4. Which document covers the API. Consumer plan terms rarely cover reselling generation inside your own product. If you are embedding a model, the API or model license is the one that binds you.

Who actually has to act

Not every reader needs to change anything.

• Selling the image or the design - print-on-demand, stock, book covers, merch: the output license is binding on you, and a free tier that limits you to personal use rules the tool out.
• Client work and marketing assets: check visibility as well as rights, because public-by-default feeds expose unreleased campaigns.
• Shipping generation inside your own product: the model license decides, and a free hosted tier almost never covers resale of the capability. Read the API terms, not the consumer plan.
• Moodboards, internal decks, personal projects: personal-use free tiers are fine, and this is most of what free tiers are for.
• Already on a paid plan: you are probably covered for output rights, but check whether a partner or third-party model inside the product carries the same promise.

Every term here was read on the vendor's own page on October 23, 2026, and these documents change - one of them was reissued two days before we wrote this. Nothing here is legal advice: read the current terms yourself before you ship, and take your own advice where real money rests on the answer. The practical move is to screenshot the clause, not the listicle. Save the dated terms page for the tool you picked alongside the asset, so that in a year you can show which permission you had when you shipped. Upfynd lists 219 tools in AI image and video as of October 2026, and licensing is the one thing none of their taglines will tell you.