Background removal, upscale, restore, generate, edit — 15 AI image operations through one REST API. $0.0005–$0.020 per call. 100 free credits, no card.
Replace a sprawl of single-tool vendors with one Bearer token and one credit balance. Same key bills web, mobile, and REST.
Hair-level alpha matting at $0.009, or generate a brand-new AI background at $0.020. Drop-in for remove.bg.
$0.0015 per image. Sharp detail recovery up to 4K, perfect for ecommerce hero shots and print prep.
Two text-to-image modes: fast (~3 s, $0.00065) and high-quality (~13 s, $0.0019). One JSON call, no queue.
"Make the sky orange", "remove the person" — $0.02 per edit, 8–14 s typical. See photo-editing-api.
Photo restore for scratched scans, face restore for blurry portraits — $0.00105 each. Group-photo safe.
$0.005 per call. Erase distractions, watermarks, signage, or background clutter from any photo.
All operations live under api.pixelapi.dev with a single Bearer key. Here is one curl for each of the five most common calls.
# 1. Remove background — $0.009 curl -X POST https://api.pixelapi.dev/v1/image/remove-background \ -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \ -F "[email protected]" \ -o no_bg.png
# 2. Upscale 4× — $0.0015 curl -X POST https://api.pixelapi.dev/v1/image/upscale \ -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \ -F "[email protected]" \ -F "scale=4" \ -o upscaled.png
# 3. Restore an old photo — $0.005 curl -X POST https://api.pixelapi.dev/v1/photo-restore \ -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \ -F "image_file=@old_scan.jpg" \ -o restored.png
# 4. Text-to-image — $0.001 curl -X POST https://api.pixelapi.dev/v1/image/generate \ -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"prompt":"a calico cat on a marble countertop, studio light"}'
# 5. Instruction-based edit — $0.020 curl -X POST https://api.pixelapi.dev/v1/image/edit \ -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"image":"https://example.com/photo.jpg","prompt":"add a sunset behind the subject"}'
remove.bg + ClipDrop + Cloudinary + DeepAI + Replicate = 5 APIs, 5 bills, 5 SDKs, 5 sets of rate limits. PixelAPI is 1 key.
| PixelAPI | 5-vendor stack | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of API keys | 1 | 5 |
| Number of monthly invoices | 1 | 5 |
| Background removal price | $0.009 | $0.20 (remove.bg) |
| 4× upscale price | $0.060 | $0.10 – $0.30 (ClipDrop / Cloudinary) |
| Instruction-based edit price | $0.020 | $0.20 – $0.50 (Photoroom / ClipDrop) |
| Text-to-image price | $0.001 | $0.005 – $0.03 (Replicate / DeepAI) |
| Cold start | None — always warm | 20–60 s on Replicate |
| Free credits on signup | 100 — no card | Mixed; some require card |
| Indian Rupee billing | Razorpay (₹200 / 2K credits) | USD / EUR only |
Competitor pricing references: remove.bg/pricing, clipdrop.co/apis/pricing, cloudinary.com/pricing, deepai.org/pricing, replicate.com/pricing (checked 2026-05-17).
A no-card signup gets you enough volume to validate the API on real workloads.
1 credit per text-to-image call. Generate a hundred concepts, hero shots, or moodboard variants on the free balance alone.
10 credits each. Test hair-level alpha on your actual catalog before deciding to migrate from remove.bg.
60-credit upscale, 5-credit restores — enough to A/B PixelAPI's 4× output against your current upscaler.
20 credits each. Try the prompts you'd normally pay Photoroom for, on your own images, before spending a rupee.
The questions we get most often from teams evaluating image APIs.
Every operation is billed in credits at 1 credit = $0.001. Text-to-image starts at 1 credit ($0.00065), background removal is 10 credits ($0.009), upscale is 1.5 credits ($0.0015), edit is 5 credits ($0.005). Plans: Starter $10/mo (10K credits), Pro $50/mo (60K credits), Scale $200/mo (300K credits). Free tier on signup: 100 credits, no card required.
Background removal, background replacement, 4× upscale, face restore, object removal, text removal, text-to-image (fast and high-quality), image-to-image, inpainting, edge-guided generation, instruction-based edit, virtual try-on, 3D generation, photo restore, relight, color grade, add-shadow, outpaint, and detect-faces. All 15+ tools share the same Bearer key and credit balance.
Starter is 60 requests/minute, Pro is 300 requests/minute, Scale is 1500 requests/minute. The bulk endpoint /v1/image/batch accepts up to 50 jobs per request and works on every plan. Above Scale, custom rate limits are available — contact [email protected].
PixelAPI is a straight REST API with Bearer token auth, so any HTTP client works. Most teams use the standard requests / fetch / axios libraries. A Python SDK and a Node SDK with typed responses are available on the docs page, and an OpenAPI specification ships at /openapi.json for codegen into any language.
Yes, for the image operations those providers offer. PixelAPI's /v1/image/remove-background accepts the same image_file / image_url parameters as remove.bg. For Replicate workflows, PixelAPI replaces variable usage-based billing with fixed per-call credits. Most teams migrate in under an hour by swapping the base URL and key.
No. Sign up with Google and you get 100 free credits immediately — enough for 100 generations or 10 background removals or 5 upscales. No card required until you choose to upgrade.
PixelAPI runs always-warm — there are no cold starts. Background removal returns in 0.6–1.2 seconds, text-to-image in about 3 seconds, instruction-based edit in 8–14 seconds. Replicate or other on-demand processing platforms commonly see 20–60 seconds of cold-start latency the first time a model is invoked.
100 credits on signup. No card. One key, 15 tools, same balance.
Get 100 free credits