Leonardo AI

Leonardo AI is the image generator you pick when Midjourney’s “type a prompt and hope for the best” approach isn’t cutting it. If you need to train custom models on your own art style, edit compositions in real time, or pipe generated images directly into a production workflow via API, this is where you land. If you just want pretty pictures from text prompts with zero learning curve, Midjourney is still the simpler choice.

What Leonardo AI Does Well

The single biggest differentiator is custom model training. You upload a set of reference images — your character designs, your brand’s visual style, your product photography — and Leonardo trains a model that reproduces those specific aesthetics. I trained a model on 15 illustrations from a client’s children’s book project, and within two generations the output was nailing the color palette, line weight, and character proportions. Midjourney can’t do this. DALL-E can’t do this. It’s the reason most game studios I’ve worked with have landed here.

The Real-time Canvas is the other standout. Think of it as Photoshop’s generative fill, but purpose-built for AI image workflows. You can sketch rough shapes, select regions to inpaint, extend images beyond their borders, and blend multiple generated elements into a single composition — all without leaving the platform. I used it to composite a character from one generation onto a background from another, then refined the lighting with a text prompt adjustment. The whole process took maybe four minutes. Doing the same thing with a generate-download-edit-upload cycle on other platforms would take twenty.

Phoenix, their latest foundation model, deserves specific mention. Text rendering is actually legible now — not perfect, but usable for mockups. Hands come out correct about 85% of the time, which sounds low until you remember where AI image generation was two years ago. Complex multi-subject scenes hold together well. I prompted a “busy coffee shop interior with six people at different tables, afternoon light through large windows” and got back a coherent, properly lit scene on the first try. That kind of compositional understanding used to require heavy prompt engineering.

The transparent PNG output is a small thing that saves enormous time. If you’re generating assets for design work — icons, characters, UI elements — getting them with proper alpha channels instead of having to run everything through a background remover is genuinely useful. It’s the kind of feature that tells you the team actually uses their own product for real work.

Where It Falls Short

The token economy is confusing and occasionally frustrating. Different features consume different amounts of tokens, and the rates aren’t always intuitive. A standard image generation might cost 4-8 tokens. Running the same image through the Universal Upscaler costs another chunk. Motion generation eats tokens like nothing else — a single 4-second video clip can run 24+ tokens. If you’re on the Apprentice plan and you start experimenting with motion and upscaling, you can burn through your monthly 8,500 tokens in a week. There’s no good way to predict your usage until you’ve been on the platform for a month or two.

The interface has grown unwieldy. Leonardo started clean, but years of feature additions have created a dashboard that’s genuinely overwhelming for new users. There are multiple generation modes (text-to-image, image-to-image, real-time canvas, motion, texture generation, 3D), each with their own settings panels, and the relationship between them isn’t always clear. I’ve onboarded three different teams onto Leonardo, and every time there’s a two-week adjustment period where people can’t find things. The documentation helps, but it’s scattered across blog posts, help articles, and community forums rather than being organized in one place.

Custom model training, while powerful, requires patience and experimentation. The minimum of 10 reference images sounds easy, but the quality of those images matters enormously. I’ve had training runs produce incredible results and others produce muddy, inconsistent output from the same number of references. The difference usually comes down to image consistency, resolution, and variety within the training set. Leonardo provides guidelines, but there’s still a trial-and-error element that can waste your tokens during the learning phase.

The community gallery is a double-edged sword. The defaults have shifted over time, but I’ve seen users accidentally publish private client work because they missed a toggle during generation. Always double-check your visibility settings before generating, especially on new accounts or after platform updates.

Pricing Breakdown

Free tier: 150 tokens per day that reset daily (not monthly). That’s roughly 15-25 standard generations depending on settings. You get access to the base models but not the premium ones, and your generations appear in the community gallery by default. It’s enough to genuinely test the platform — not just a teaser.

Apprentice ($12/month): 8,500 tokens per month. You get private generations, access to all foundation models including Phoenix, priority queue access, and the ability to use the Real-time Canvas. This is the tier most individual creators should start with. The catch: no custom model training. If that’s what brought you here, you need Artisan.

Artisan ($30/month): 25,000 tokens per month plus custom model training, higher max resolution (up to 2048x2048 natively), and API access. This is the sweet spot for professional use. You can train up to 10 custom models and the priority queue means you’re rarely waiting more than a few seconds for generations. If you’re producing content regularly, this is where the per-image cost starts looking very competitive against stock photography.

Maestro ($60/month): 60,000 tokens per month, maximum concurrency (generate more images simultaneously), priority infrastructure access, and the full API with higher rate limits. This tier makes sense for teams or heavy production workflows. If you’re burning through Artisan tokens consistently, the per-token cost at Maestro is significantly better.

Annual billing gets you roughly 20% off across all tiers. There are no setup fees, no per-seat charges, and you can upgrade or downgrade at any time. Unused tokens don’t roll over — use them or lose them.

One gotcha: API usage draws from the same token pool as your manual generations. If you’re building an integration and testing heavily, you can drain your allocation faster than expected. Budget extra tokens for development and testing phases.

Key Features Deep Dive

Custom Model Training

This is Leonardo’s killer feature and the primary reason to choose it over alternatives. You upload 10-20 images that represent a specific style, character, or aesthetic. Leonardo fine-tunes one of its foundation models on your dataset, creating a custom model you can invoke by name in any prompt.

In practice, I’ve used this for: maintaining character consistency across a 40-page storyboard, creating product visualization mockups that match a brand’s existing photography style, and generating game assets that fit within an established art direction. The results range from “impressively close” to “indistinguishable from the reference material” depending on training set quality.

Training takes 15-30 minutes and costs a flat token amount. You can iterate — train, test, add more references, retrain. Each custom model has its own settings for training strength, which controls how tightly the output adheres to your reference images versus the base model’s general capabilities.

Real-time Canvas

Think of this as a collaborative workspace between you and the AI. You start with a blank canvas or an existing image, then use tools to guide generation. The sketch tool lets you rough out a composition — draw a circle for a head, a rectangle for a building — and the AI interprets your intent. Inpainting lets you select a region and regenerate just that area with a new prompt. Outpainting extends images beyond their original borders.

What makes it genuinely useful is the speed. Changes render in near real-time (a few seconds on priority queue), so you can iterate on a composition the way you’d iterate on a sketch — make a change, see the result, adjust, repeat. I’ve used it to fix awkward poses, swap backgrounds, add elements to scenes, and remove unwanted artifacts. It’s not a replacement for Photoshop, but for AI-native editing workflows it’s the best implementation I’ve used.

Phoenix Foundation Model

Leonardo’s proprietary model, and it’s competitive with Midjourney v6 and DALL-E 3 in quality terms. Where it particularly excels is prompt adherence — it does what you ask more literally than Midjourney, which tends to add its own artistic interpretation. If your prompt says “exactly three red apples on a white marble countertop,” Phoenix gives you three red apples on a white marble countertop. Midjourney might give you five apples with dramatic lighting and a moody atmosphere.

This literal-mindedness is a strength for commercial and production work where you need predictable output. It’s less of a strength for artistic exploration, where Midjourney’s interpretive flair can produce more inspiring surprises.

Motion Generation

Still relatively new, and it shows. You take a generated image (or upload your own) and Leonardo creates a 4-second video clip with AI-generated motion. The results vary significantly. Simple motions — camera pans, gentle movement of elements like hair or water — look convincing. Complex motion — characters walking, objects interacting — tends to produce artifacts and uncanny results.

It’s usable for social media content, presentation backgrounds, and concept visualization. It’s not usable for anything that needs to look polished or professional in a video context. Consider it a bonus feature rather than a primary reason to subscribe. For serious AI video, you’re still looking at Runway or Kling.

Universal Upscaler

Takes any image — generated or uploaded — and upscales it up to 4x resolution with AI enhancement. It’s not just interpolation; it actually adds detail and sharpness. I’ve taken 512x512 generations and upscaled them to print-ready resolution with genuinely good results. It also works well for cleaning up slightly soft or artifacted generations.

The token cost is reasonable for what you get, and it’s faster than running images through external upscaling tools. One caveat: it can occasionally “hallucinate” details that weren’t in the original image, particularly in texture-heavy areas. Always compare with the original before using the upscaled version as final output.

Image Guidance Mode

Upload a reference image and Leonardo uses it as structural or stylistic guidance without you writing a detailed prompt. You can control the influence strength — low influence for loose inspiration, high influence for close reproduction. Combined with custom models, this creates an incredibly powerful workflow for maintaining visual consistency across large projects.

I’ve used it to generate 50+ product shots that all share the same lighting setup and camera angle, just by providing one reference photo as guidance. The time savings compared to writing detailed prompts for each generation were significant.

Who Should Use Leonardo AI

Game developers and concept artists who need consistent characters, environments, and assets across large projects. The custom model training alone justifies the subscription.

Marketing teams producing 20+ visual assets per month. At the Artisan tier, your per-image cost is pennies compared to stock photography or freelance illustration. Brand consistency via custom models means you’re not fighting with the AI to match your style guide.

Developers building AI image generation into their products. The API is well-documented, reasonably priced, and stable. Rate limits on Artisan and Maestro tiers are sufficient for most production applications.

Anyone who needs editing control, not just generation. If your workflow involves iterating on compositions — adjusting elements, fixing details, combining generations — the Real-time Canvas makes Leonardo a fundamentally different tool than prompt-and-pray platforms.

Budget range: expect $30-60/month for professional use. The free tier is genuinely useful for evaluation but won’t sustain regular production work.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

If you want the absolute highest aesthetic quality with minimal effort, Midjourney still produces more visually striking results from simple prompts. Its default aesthetic is gorgeous, and if “make beautiful images from text” is your entire requirement, Midjourney is the simpler path.

If you primarily need photorealistic images for content marketing — blog headers, social media posts, stock photo replacements — DALL-E via ChatGPT is more accessible and the integration with the broader OpenAI ecosystem adds value.

If you’re exploring open-source options and want maximum control without subscription costs, Stable Diffusion via ComfyUI or Automatic1111 gives you everything Leonardo offers (and more) for the cost of compute. The trade-off is a much steeper technical learning curve.

If your primary need is AI video generation rather than still images, Leonardo’s motion features are too limited to be your main tool. Look at Runway instead. See our Leonardo AI vs Midjourney comparison for a detailed side-by-side.

The Bottom Line

Leonardo AI is the professional’s image generator — more capable than Midjourney for production work, more accessible than Stable Diffusion for non-technical users, and priced fairly for what it delivers. The custom model training and Real-time Canvas genuinely set it apart from every other hosted platform. If you need control over your output and consistency across projects, it’s the strongest option available right now.

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