5 Things to Check Before Paying for an AI Image or Video Tool in 2026

Midjourney’s help centre opens its plan comparison with a plain warning: every plan is a subscription that renews monthly or yearly unless you set it to cancel. The four tiers, Basic, Standard, Pro and Mega, are listed at $10, $30, $60 and $120 a month, and the differences between them go well beyond speed.

The same is true of Runway, Adobe Firefly and most other AI image and video services. Each sells a monthly allowance, sets its own rules on commercial use and privacy, and renews by default. The five checks below are based on each vendor’s own documentation as of October 25, 2026.

They apply whether you subscribe directly or through an independent reseller of official plans, such as the Midjourney plans at PayAIwithCrypto, which are applied to the buyer’s own Midjourney account. Reseller terms are covered in the last point.

1. How much can you make with a month’s allowance?

Midjourney sells GPU time rather than a set number of pictures. Basic includes 3.3 hours of Fast time a month, Standard 15 hours, Pro 30 hours and Mega 60 hours. Its documentation says one image prompt usually takes about a minute of GPU time and a video prompt about eight, while a batch of four HD videos uses around 26 minutes. Unused Fast time does not carry over when the plan renews.

Runway counts in credits. Its Standard plan includes 625 credits a month, which Runway says equals 52 seconds of Gen-4.5 video or 78 Gen-4 images at 1080p. Only the top Max plan lets unused credits roll over, and only for one month.

Adobe’s paid Firefly plans include unlimited standard image generations, but video, audio and partner models draw on monthly generative credits that reset each billing cycle. If you plan to make video, do the sums in seconds of footage, not in plan names.

2. Is there a slower unlimited mode?

Midjourney’s Relax mode gives unlimited image generations on Standard, Pro and Mega, and unlimited SD video only on Pro and Mega. Basic has no Relax mode at all.

The trade-off is waiting. Relax jobs queue until GPUs free up, which Midjourney says can take anywhere from 0 to 30 minutes, and HD video and repeat jobs are not available in Relax. For a hobbyist who is not in a hurry, Standard with Relax often goes further than a higher tier used in Fast mode only.

3. Can you use the results for work?

Commercial terms differ between vendors, and between tiers of the same vendor. Midjourney lets subscribers use their images and videos in almost any way, but any company earning over $1,000,000 a year in gross revenue must be on Pro or Mega.

Adobe states that outputs from its own Firefly models are safe for commercial use, because the models were trained on licensed content and public domain material. Firefly also offers partner models from Google, OpenAI and others, and Adobe says the user is responsible for deciding whether that content suits a project. If you produce client work, note which model made each asset.

4. Who can see what you create?

On many image services, new work is public by default. Midjourney’s Stealth mode, which keeps images and videos off public view on its website, is only included with Pro and Mega.

Its help page adds three caveats. Anything made in public Discord channels stays visible to others. Upgrading does not make older public work private automatically, so each item has to be switched by hand. And moving an image to the trash is not the same as making it private, since trashed work can still turn up on the Explore page.

Anyone working on unreleased products or client concepts should treat privacy as a plan feature and budget for it from the start.

5. How do renewal, cancellation and refunds work?

Midjourney’s annual plans cost 20% less, with the full year charged upfront. Cancelling takes effect at the end of the current billing cycle, and refunds are narrow: an account qualifies only if it has used less than 20 GPU minutes in its lifetime.

A fixed term is the alternative for people who would rather nothing renewed. The Runway plans at PayAIwithCrypto, for example, put Standard, Pro or Max on the buyer’s own Runway account for a set number of months, and nothing renews when the term ends. The reseller is independent and not affiliated with Midjourney, Runway or the other vendors it lists. It says it never asks for an account password, and its terms say a plan is delivered within 24 hours or the order is refunded in full. For Midjourney, the account has to be on the free plan when the new plan is applied.

Whichever route you choose, set a calendar reminder a week before the plan ends.

Final thoughts

Pick the tool by the work you make, then read five things in its own help pages: the monthly allowance, any unlimited slow mode, commercial rights, privacy settings and the renewal and refund terms. Ten minutes with the documentation can save a month of wasted credits.