What is Black Forest Labs?

Black Forest Labs sells its FLUX image and video generation models through a pay-as-you-go API, a browser Playground, and licenses for self-hosting open-weight models. The vendor lists text-to-image, image editing, inpainting, virtual try-on, deblur and video endpoints, reachable from a web dashboard and a REST API.

Who it's for

Developers and companies that want to call FLUX models from their own apps, and teams that want to run open-weight models on their own hardware under a paid license. The Playground suits people who want to try models in a browser without coding, using the same credits as the API.

Pros & cons

Strengths

The pricing page says there are no subscriptions or seat fees and you only pay for what you generate; the docs state 1 credit = $0.01 and that credits pay for both API and Playground use at the same prices.
The help center lists per-image or per-megapixel prices (Reported): FLUX.2 [pro] from $0.03/MP for generation and $0.045/MP for editing, [flex] $0.05/MP and $0.10/MP, [max] from $0.07/MP, and FLUX.2 [klein] from about $0.014 to $0.015 per image.
The release notes list pricing for the newest image models: FLUX 3 Image Klein at $0.008 per image at 768sq up to $0.036 at 4k, and FLUX 3 Image at $0.041 per image at 768sq up to $0.607 at 4k.
The help center lists video from $0.17 a second at HD, $0.29 a second at FHD, and drafts at $0.06 a second; the release notes list higher qhd and uhd rates of $0.40 to $0.95 a second.
The API docs list three endpoints: api.bfl.ai (global, automatic failover), api.eu.bfl.ai (EU regions only, described as GDPR compliant) and api.us.bfl.ai (US regions only).
The pricing page lists open-weights licenses (Builder, Platform, Professional, Enterprise, Synthetic Data) with image-per-month caps, domain and user counts, and fine-tuning and LoRA rights; the help center lists FLUX.2 [klein] 4B as Apache 2.0.

Limitations

Prepaid credits are required before generating, and the vendor's pages disagree on terms: the Developer Terms say prepaid credits expire twelve months after purchase and are non-refundable, the FLUX API Service Terms say credit purchases are non-refundable without stating an expiry, and the website terms say credits are non-exchangeable and non-refundable.
The vendor's terms differ on training: the website terms say content is used to train models by default, with an opt-out by emailing legal@blackforestlabs.ai that applies going forward only; the FLUX API Service Terms say BFL may use Inputs and Outputs to train and improve its models; the Developer Terms read did not clearly say. Confirm which terms apply to your account.
The API docs say generated image URLs expire 10 minutes after generation, concurrency is up to 24 requests on most endpoints and 6 on one Kontext endpoint, and no requests-per-minute figure is given (clients are told to back off on 429 errors).
Self-hosted open weights are limited: the help center lists FLUX.2 [dev], FLUX.2 [klein] 9B and FLUX.1 Kontext [dev] as non-commercial, and FLUX.2 [dev] has no hosted API. Commercial self-hosting needs a paid license, and Professional, Enterprise and Synthetic Data are contact-sales with no public price.
The pricing page did not show per-model prices or free credits in the text read, and the Finetuning API was deprecated on Oct 31, 2025 with no migration path listed; FLUX.2 LoRA inference is a separate public beta.

Plans and pricing

API and Playground (pay as you go): Usage-based, 1 credit = $0.01. No subscription or seat fees. Credits must be added first and are used in both the API and the Playground. Per-image, per-megapixel or per-second prices depend on the model (Reported).
Builder (open weights): Not readable. License to self-host FLUX 3 Image Klein and FLUX.2 [klein]: 10K images a month, 1 domain, 10 licensed users, fine-tuning and LoRA rights.
Platform (open weights): Not readable. Adds FLUX.2 [klein] 9B and FLUX.2 [dev]: 100K images a month, 1 domain, 10 users, fine-tuning and LoRA rights.
Professional (open weights): Contact sales. FLUX 3 Image Klein and FLUX.2 [dev]: 100K images a month, up to 3 domains, 10 users, fine-tuning and LoRA rights.
Enterprise: Contact sales. All models and new releases, custom volume, domains and users, permissive commercial use, combined API and weights pricing; volume discounts, SLA guarantees and dedicated support.
Synthetic Data: Contact sales. FLUX 3 Image Klein or commercial models with rights to use outputs as training data, no domain restrictions, custom volume.

API prices were read from the vendor's help center and release notes (Reported); the bfl.ai pricing page text showed a calculator and license tiers but no per-model prices, and the docs pricing page lost many numbers. Open-weights license prices were not shown. Prices are in USD, credits are bought through Stripe in the dashboard, and the vendor says fees can change. Confirm on the live pricing page.

Details checked October 2026 against the vendor's own pages. Prices and limits change, so confirm before you buy. Official pricing page ↗

Sources

This profile was compiled from these public pages. We have not run hands-on tests.

Summary