The Best AI for Image Generation, Chosen by the Job
"What is the best AI for an image" has a shape problem. It reads like it wants a name, and every honest answer is a table. We run five image models behind one API and field this question weekly. The useful reply never changes: tell us the job. The model that wins on a transparent product cut-out loses badly on a thousand blog thumbnails.
Best is job-shaped, and the jobs are not close together
Rank image models on a single axis and the ranking is right for one job and quietly wrong for the other six. What decides a project is a capability gate, not a quality gradient. A model either returns a transparent background or it does not, either accepts fourteen references or three, either reaches 4K or stops at 1K.
Those gates do not track price the way you would expect. The cheapest model we sell carries aspect ratios the most expensive one cannot produce. The most expensive one is the only one that writes a readable word inside a picture. None of that is intuitive, which is why the table exists.
The decision table
Per image at 1K, on E2X, checked 26 August 2026.
| The job | The model | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Product cut-out on a transparent background | GPT Image 2 | $0.0525 |
| Packaging, poster, or anything with readable words in it | Nano Banana Pro | $0.075 |
| A thousand blog thumbnails | Nano Banana 2 Lite | $0.0238 |
| One character who stays the same person across twenty images | Nano Banana Pro | $0.075 |
| Print-resolution 4K artwork | Nano Banana 2 | $0.08 at 4K |
| A 3:1 or 1:3 panoramic banner | GPT Image 2 | $0.0525 |
| An 8:1 header or a 1:8 vertical rail | Nano Banana 2 Lite | $0.0238 |
Prices and product terms can change. Check each provider's current pricing before making a purchasing decision. Google Batch or Flex pricing is not directly equivalent to a standard on-demand API request because scheduling, availability, and processing conditions differ; it is therefore excluded from this comparison. This is a scoped comparison, not a claim that E2X is the world's cheapest option in every configuration.
The rest of this post is the reasoning behind each row.
Transparency: GPT Image 2, and nothing else
GPT Image 2 exposes background, taking transparent, opaque or auto. Ask for transparent and you get a PNG with a real alpha channel. No Google model on our catalog offers that parameter, so this is not a preference. It is the only route.
It matters more than it sounds. A cut-out product shot, a sticker sheet, a logo that has to sit over an unknown background — each either arrives with alpha or arrives needing a person in Photoshop. Bolting background removal onto a cheaper model buys you a second API call, a second failure mode, and the grey halo that automated matting leaves around hair and glass.
quality on GPT Image 2 is a ×7 multiplier at every setting, including low and auto, and the default is high. The real 1K price is $0.0075 × 7 = $0.0525, not the raw catalog figure.
Readable words in the picture: Nano Banana Pro
If the image contains type — packaging mockup, poster, menu board, chart — Nano Banana Pro is where Google put legible, styled, multilingual in-image text. It is gemini-3-pro-image, and that capability is the single reason to pay $0.075 instead of $0.04.
The multilingual side is underrated. A finished English infographic can go back in as a reference with a request for Spanish copy, and Pro resets the type without rebuilding the layout around it. Localisation stops being a design ticket and becomes an API call.
The older tiers were never built for it. The original Nano Banana is a 2.5-generation model, and its lettering holds up right until somebody actually reads it. If there is a headline in the picture, do not try to save $0.035.
Volume: Nano Banana 2 Lite
A thousand images is where per-unit price stops being a rounding error. Nano Banana 2 Lite is $0.0238 against a $0.042 list, so that thousand costs $23.80. The same run on Pro is $75.
Lite is gemini-3.1-flash-lite-image, a full generation newer than the unsuffixed model it replaces, despite what the naming implies. Cheaper and newer at once.
Two constraints to build around. It is 1K only, with no resolution parameter at all — sending one is an error, not an ignored field. Its aspect_ratio default is 1:1, so set it explicitly or a batch of banners quietly becomes a batch of squares.
One character across a series: Nano Banana Pro
This row surprises people. It looks like a quality problem and it is a reference-slot problem.
Pro is the only tier here that knows what each reference image is for. Fourteen slots, and they are not interchangeable: 5 are read as who the person is, 6 as what the object looks like, 3 as how the whole thing should be treated.
Everything else takes references as one undifferentiated pile. The practical difference: a single Pro request holds a face, the object in that person's hands and the art direction at once, and gives all three back together. An ad composite in one call instead of three passes and a compositing step. Nano Banana 2 accepts the same fourteen but cannot be told which is which. Holding one face steady over a long run has its own guide.
Print resolution: Nano Banana 2, or Pro if the artwork carries text
Nano Banana 2 reaches 4K with multipliers of ×1.5 at 2K and ×2 at 4K, so $0.04 becomes $0.06 and then $0.08. That is the cheapest 4K on our catalog by a wide margin.
Pro reaches 4K too, up to 4096 by 4096, at $0.15 — worth it only when the print piece has type in it. One useful quirk: on Pro, 1K and 2K cost exactly the same, both $0.075. If you are already paying for Pro, asking for 1K leaves pixels on the table.
One slug detail worth a debugging hour. Generation on this model is google/nano-banana-2 and stops there — the capability suffix the other models carry is absent. Editing does take one, google/nano-banana-2/edit-image. Append /text-to-image to the generation slug and you get a 404.
Extreme shapes: GPT Image 2 for panoramas, Lite for rails
GPT Image 2 carries fifteen aspect ratios, the widest range we sell, and it alone has true 3:1, 1:3, 2:1 and 1:2. A 3:1 hero banner generated natively beats a 21:9 image cropped down, because the model composes for the frame it was given instead of having its subject sliced off.
For the truly extreme rails it flips to the cheapest model. Lite alone offers 1:4, 4:1, 1:8 and 8:1. An 8:1 site header or a 1:8 vertical sidebar has no substitute at any other tier, and costs $0.0238.
Defaults differ across the range: 9:16 on Nano Banana 2 and Pro, 1:1 on Lite. Pin it in your request template and stop thinking about it.
The default, and when to leave it
If you are not going to read the table, take Nano Banana 2 at $0.04. It covers the widest set of jobs we see: 4K when you want it, 14 references, text good enough for anything not typography-led, ten aspect ratios, and a price close enough to the floor that volume does not scare you. Most projects that arrive asking for Pro are fine on it.
Leave the default in four situations, and only these:
- The image needs a transparent background, so it becomes GPT Image 2.
- Type in the image is the point of the image, so it becomes Pro.
- A character or a product must stay identical across a long series, so it becomes Pro for the role-split references.
- You are generating in the thousands and the images are simple, so it becomes Lite and the bill drops by 40%.
Everything else, stay on Nano Banana 2. We would rather say that than sell you Pro at nearly twice the price for a job that never uses what Pro is for.
Two things this post is deliberately not
It is not a photorealism review. Which model makes the most convincing photograph is a narrower question with a different answer, and it lives in the most realistic AI image generator comparison.
It is also not the four-way Nano Banana explainer. Google ships four models under that name — legacy, 2, 2 Lite and Pro — and untangling them takes a full post, which is the Nano Banana model comparison. Price arithmetic across every tier and multiplier is in the cheapest image generation API, and the API-versus-subscription decision is in what is worth paying for.
Every model above answers the same submit-and-poll contract, so moving between rows of that table is one string in the request body — worth knowing before you commit to a row. Browse them all, or narrow to text-to-image. Prompt technique carries across the whole range, and that is the prompting guide.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best AI for image generation?
There is no single best one, because the differences between models are capability gates rather than quality gradients. For most jobs Nano Banana 2 at $0.04 is the right default. Switch to GPT Image 2 for transparent backgrounds, Nano Banana Pro for readable in-image text or role-split references, Nano Banana 2 Lite for high-volume batches.
Which AI image model can make a transparent background?
GPT Image 2, which exposes a background parameter accepting transparent, opaque or auto. It is the only model on the E2X catalog returning a real alpha channel in one call, at $0.0525 per 1K image as of 26 August 2026. Google's models have no equivalent, so transparency there means a separate background-removal step.
Which AI model writes readable text inside an image?
Nano Banana Pro, gemini-3-pro-image, which renders legible, styled and multilingual text as part of the artwork. Nano Banana 2 manages simple words acceptably. The original Nano Banana predates the capability entirely, since it arrived with the Gemini 3 generation, so anything typography-led belongs on Pro at $0.075.
What is the cheapest AI image generator that is still good?
Lite, at $0.0238 an image. Its model ID is gemini-3.1-flash-lite-image, putting it a full generation ahead of the original Nano Banana it succeeded, so it undercuts that model on price while beating it on capability. The limits are real though: 1K output only, and the resolution field the other tiers accept is rejected here.
Which AI image generator supports 4K output?
Nano Banana 2 and Nano Banana Pro. Nano Banana 2 costs $0.08 at 4K, being a ×2 multiplier on its $0.04 base price, which makes it the cheaper route. Nano Banana Pro reaches 4096 by 4096 at $0.15, and charges the same for 2K as for 1K.
How many reference images can I use for consistent characters?
Fourteen on Nano Banana Pro, and the useful part is that Pro sorts them: 5 slots are read as the character, 6 as objects, 3 as styling. That sorting is what stops a face wandering over a long run. Nano Banana 2 takes fourteen as well but reads them all the same way, and the original Nano Banana stops at three.
Which AI model supports extreme aspect ratios like 8:1 banners?
Nano Banana 2 Lite, which is the only model on the catalog offering 1:4, 4:1, 1:8 and 8:1 alongside the standard set. For wide-but-not-extreme panoramas, GPT Image 2 carries fifteen ratios including true 3:1, 1:3, 2:1 and 1:2. The Google flash and pro tiers stop at 21:9.