Is Midjourney Free? Plans, Free Trial and Cheapest Way to Use It (2026)

No. Midjourney is not free in 2026. Midjourney's help centre says there is no free trial on midjourney.com or in Discord, and every plan is a paid subscription, starting with Basic at $10 a month (or $96 a year, which works out to $8 a month). The only free taste is a limited trial in the separate niji · journey mobile app.

Below you'll find every Midjourney plan with its price, what you actually get on the cheapest plan, the "free" Fast time you can earn, and the cheapest legitimate way to use it. We also cover where Kenerate AI fits, since Midjourney is not one of the models Kenerate runs.

All Midjourney details below were read from Midjourney's own help centre (docs.midjourney.com) on 23 October 2026.

Is Midjourney free in 2026?

Midjourney is paid-only on the web and in Discord. Its "Free Trials" help article says, in short, that a limited trial exists in the niji · journey app for iOS and Android, and that no free trial is currently available in Discord or on the midjourney.com website.

So the honest answer has three parts:

1. Midjourney (midjourney.com and Discord): no free plan, no free trial. You need Basic, Standard, Pro or Mega.
2. niji · journey app: a limited trial on phones. niji is Midjourney's anime- and illustration-focused model, so it is not the same as using the main Midjourney model. The help article doesn't say how many images the trial includes.
3. "Free Midjourney" websites and Discord bots that aren't run by Midjourney are not Midjourney. Many are wrappers around other models, or shared accounts that break Midjourney's Terms of Service. Skip them.

How much does Midjourney cost? (Plans as of 23 October 2026)

These figures come from Midjourney's "Comparing Midjourney Plans" article. All plans renew automatically every month or year until you cancel. Annual billing is 20% cheaper and is paid upfront.

The real entry price is $10 for one month, or $96 if you commit to a year.

Is there a Midjourney free trial?

Not on the main product. Midjourney's help article is clear that the only trial is the limited one in the niji · journey app. If you see an ad promising a "Midjourney free trial" on the website, read it carefully: it is either out of date, a different product, or a paid plan.

What you can do for free is look. The Explore page on midjourney.com shows images other members have made, which is a good way to judge the style before you pay.

What can you do with Midjourney's cheapest plan?

Basic gives you 200 minutes of Fast GPU time a month and no Relax mode, so when the minutes run out you either wait for next month or buy more at $4 an hour.

How far 200 minutes goes depends on what you make. According to Midjourney's Version article, the default model is V8.2 (default since July 24, 2026), and on the V8 models a standard (SD) image job costs about 0.8 minutes of GPU time while an HD (2K) job costs about 1.3 minutes. That puts Basic at roughly:

• about 250 SD image jobs, or
• about 150 HD image jobs,

before variations, upscales, edits and video, which all use the same pool. Video on Basic is SD only, one job at a time. These are our estimates from Midjourney's published GPU costs, not a figure Midjourney quotes.

Unused Fast time does not roll over to the next month.

What does "free" really include on Midjourney?

A few things on Midjourney are free, but only once you pay for a plan.

Free Fast time for rating images

Midjourney's "Earning Free Fast Time" article says that each day, the top 2,000 members who rate the most images get an extra hour of Fast time, and occasional surveys pay out Fast time too. The catch: you need an active subscription to use it, and awarded time expires 30 days after you get it.

Usage rights and commercial use

Midjourney's "Using Images & Videos Commercially" article says you own the images and videos you create, even after you cancel, with two exceptions:

• If you upscale someone else's image, it still belongs to them.
• If your business grosses more than $1,000,000 a year, you need Pro or Mega to use the images commercially for the company.

Midjourney can't give copyright advice, and copyright rules for AI images differ by country, so check locally before you build a product on them.

Privacy

On Basic and Standard, what you make shows up publicly in the Midjourney gallery. Stealth mode, which keeps your images and videos private, is only on Pro and Mega. If you are working on client or unreleased material, budget for Pro.

Watermarks

Midjourney's plan and usage-rights pages don't mention adding a visible watermark to images on any plan.

What is the cheapest legit way to use Midjourney?

If you want Midjourney's look specifically, here is how to spend the least:

1. Look before you pay. Browse the Explore gallery and decide whether the style suits your work.
2. Try one month of Basic at $10. Don't buy a year until you know you'll use it. Set the plan to cancel straight away if you only want one month; it stays active until the period ends.
3. Draft in SD, finish in HD. SD jobs use less GPU time (about 0.8 vs 1.3 minutes on V8), so explore in SD and rerun only the winners in HD.
4. Rate images for bonus time. If you're active daily, the top-rater bonus can add Fast hours. Use them within 30 days.
5. Top up instead of upgrading if you only run short occasionally: extra Fast time is $4 an hour on every plan. Basic plus three extra hours ($22) costs less than Standard ($30), but Standard adds unlimited Relax images, which is better value if you generate every day.
6. Go annual only when you're sure. At $8 a month, annual Basic is the cheapest Midjourney there is, but it's $96 paid upfront.
7. Avoid shared logins and unofficial "free Midjourney" bots. They can get accounts banned and may not be Midjourney at all.

Is Midjourney available on Kenerate AI?

No. Midjourney is not one of the models on Kenerate AI, and we won't pretend otherwise. If you specifically want Midjourney's style and features (Personalization, moodboards, its Edit Model), you need a Midjourney subscription.

If what you want is a browser-based image generator you can try for free first, here is what Kenerate AI offers, taken from our own code and pricing on 23 October 2026:

• 25 free credits on every new account, no card needed.
• The free plan can use a set of image models: Flux 2 Dev and Flux 2 Klein (3 credits per image), Flux 2 Flash (7.5), Qwen Image 2.0 and Qwen Image 3.0 (9), Flux 2 Turbo (12) and Qwen Image 2.0 Pro (21).
• Paid one-time credit packs start at $15 for 1,300 credits, with no subscription, and the credits don't expire. A paid pack unlocks the rest of the image models (for example Seedream 5.0 Pro and Nano Banana 2.1) and video.
• Video is paid only. The free plan can't generate video on Kenerate.

With 25 free credits you can make about eight Flux 2 Dev images, or two Qwen Image 3.0 images, to test prompts before paying anything. For a fuller side-by-side, see our free Midjourney alternative page, or start straight away in the AI image generator. If you just want free pictures, our guide on how to make AI pictures for free compares several options.

Is Midjourney worth paying for?

It depends on what you value. Midjourney's strength is its house style: polished, painterly, art-directed images with very little prompting, plus tools like Personalization that learn your taste. If that look is what you're after, $10 for a month of Basic is a fair way to find out.

It's a weaker fit if you:

• generate in bursts and hate paying a subscription for months you don't use,
• need Stealth mode for private work but don't want to pay $60 a month for Pro,
• want to compare several different image models on the same prompt.

In those cases, a pay-as-you-go tool with free starter credits (Kenerate is one; check the current packs on the pricing page) usually wastes less money.

Verdict

Midjourney is not free in October 2026. There's no free plan or trial on the website or in Discord, only a limited trial in the niji · journey phone app. The cheapest way in is Basic at $10 a month or $8 a month billed yearly, which gives 200 minutes of Fast time (roughly 250 standard image jobs on V8). Earned bonus Fast time needs a paid plan too. If you want to try AI image generation for free first, use a tool that actually gives free credits, then decide whether Midjourney's style is worth the subscription.

Prices, GPU times and policies were read from docs.midjourney.com on 23 October 2026, and Kenerate AI's from its own pricing and model settings on the same date. Both can change.