Midjourney is the AI image generator that made "just describe what you want" a real creative workflow, now extended into short AI video clips too. It's built for anyone making visual work — concept artists, marketers, indie game devs, people building mood boards, or just someone who wants a genuinely good picture of a cyberpunk fox riding a motorcycle. There's no free tier anymore, so this is a tool for people willing to pay a little to get a lot of image (and now video) generation out of a single account.
Key Features
- Text-to-image generation on the current V8.2 model, which produces noticeably more detailed, coherent, and stylistically controllable images than the earlier V6/V7 generations — this is the actual reason people keep paying instead of switching to a free alternative.
- Built-in V1 video model that turns any image — one you generated or one you upload — into a 5-second animated clip, extendable up to four times for a max of about 21 seconds, with automatic or manual motion prompting.
- No Discord account required anymore — you can sign up and generate entirely on midjourney.com using a Google login, though the Discord bot is still there if you prefer working in a server.
- Stealth Mode on Pro and Mega plans keeps your generations off the public community feed, which matters a lot if you're producing client work or anything you don't want showing up in someone else's explore page.
Screenshots
Why You'll Love Midjourney
Four plans that actually map to different kinds of users
Midjourney's pricing runs Basic at $10/month, Standard at $30/month, Pro at $60/month, and Mega at $120/month (all about 20% cheaper if you pay annually). What separates them isn't a feature wall so much as GPU time and workflow: Basic gives you 3.3 fast GPU hours a month and no relax mode, which is fine for someone generating a handful of images a week. Standard jumps to 15 fast hours plus unlimited relax-mode generations, which is where most hobbyists and freelancers land — you get speed when you need it and a genuinely uncapped queue when you don't mind waiting a few minutes per image. Pro and Mega add more fast hours (30 and 60) and bump concurrent job limits, aimed at people running high volume through the tool daily, like agencies or full-time concept artists. The honest takeaway: don't default to the most expensive plan. If you're not maxing out your fast hours most months, Standard is the better deal, and relax mode alone can carry a lot of casual use.
Stealth Mode is now a Pro-and-up feature, and that's a real cost to weigh
Every image and video you generate on Midjourney is public by default — visible in the community feed and searchable by anyone. Stealth Mode hides your generations from that public feed, and it's only available on the Pro ($60/month) and Mega ($120/month) plans; Basic and Standard subscribers can't turn it on at all. That's a meaningful jump if privacy is your only reason for wanting it — you're paying at least double the Standard price just for that one toggle. It's also worth knowing Stealth Mode only covers the Midjourney website: if you generate inside a public Discord channel while in stealth, other people in that channel can still see the output. If privacy is the priority, work in a private Discord server or DM the bot directly, on top of having Stealth Mode active.
Category: AI Image & Video Generation
Platform: Web, Discord (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android via browser)
Price: Paid only — plans from $10/month to $120/month, no free trial
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Midjourney removed its free trial years ago and hasn't brought back an ongoing free tier — there was a brief promotional trial in August 2024, but it lasted only days. The cheapest way in is the Basic plan at $10/month (or $8/month billed annually), which gets you 3.3 fast GPU hours and no relax mode.
No. Every generation runs on Midjourney's servers, whether you're using the web app or the Discord bot, so you need an active internet connection the whole time. There's no local or offline mode, and images/videos are stored in your account rather than saved locally by default.
Signing up only requires a Google account or a Discord account for login — Midjourney doesn't need access to your contacts, camera roll, or device storage to work through the browser. If you use image-to-image or image-to-video features, you'll grant it access to whatever specific photo you upload for that generation, nothing more.