Midjourney pauses free trial access for new users

Midjourney’s sensational AI art comes with a price tag that matches the hype. And in case you’re wondering if you can try it free and clear, the short answer for most new users is no. The business model of the moment is a subscription to generate images — not open free trials and, now, only rare time-limited promos. What’s the deal with pricing now, what “free” still exists, and how to make the most of a plan?

Is Midjourney free to use now, or do you need a plan?

Not generally. Midjourney paused its never-expiring free trial due to high demand and abuse, a move founder David Holz explained on the official Discord. The service has sometimes reopened the gates for short promotional windows — as it did for one weekend around version 5.1’s release — but there’s no permanent free tier and no public timeline for future trials. If you’re hoping to create images today, expect that you’ll need a paid plan.

You can still view community galleries and documentation for free, but making actual images from the Discord bot or web app requires an active subscription.

Current Midjourney subscription plans, tiers, and prices

The company’s lineup of monthly plans can include four packages: Basic at $10, Standard at $30, Pro at $60, and Mega for $120. They also make it more affordable to pay on an annual basis (usually around a 20% discount), which may be worth considering if you’re going to stick with Midjourney long-term. Pricing and allowances could be altered, so check the specifics on your account page prior to upgrading.

It’s not about the sticker price; it’s about what you get for each tier. Basic offers a limited pool of “Fast” GPU time (roughly 3.3 hours) but no “Relaxed” generation. Standard increases Fast hours to about 15 and opens unlimited Relaxed mode. Pro doubles Fast time to about 30 hours, keeps Relaxed unlimited, and includes Stealth mode for proprietary makes — useful for client work or times you aren’t ready to release the design. Mega pushes Fast time up (often 60 hours) and also offers the same unlimited Relaxed and priority perks.

Where does that get you? At default settings, a simple grid (single job) usually processes within one minute. For example, a Basic plan can net around 200 generations before you tap out of Fast time — fewer if you upscale heavily and iterate often, more if you push down quality terms or batch levels with care.

How Fast, Relaxed, and Turbo modes work in Midjourney

Fast mode uses more of your monthly GPU allowance and provides faster turnarounds, with a higher queue priority. It is perfect for responsive prompts, tight timelines, and detailed upsamples.

Relaxed mode does not draw down your Fast balance if you are on Standard or above, but it means that your jobs wait longer in the queue. It’s great for general research, mood boards, or just melting a bunch of files in the background. The part I hate is that a lot of heavy users do their discovering almost exclusively in Relaxed while fast-forwarding only for final passes.

Turbo mode generates probabilistic outputs approximately 4× faster but consumes Fast time at a rate of about 2×. When you do run out, you can also buy additional Fast capacity for $4 per GPU hour. Once in a while Midjourney provides limited bonus Fast time that can be earned (with bonuses offered through daily rewards for the day’s top image raters or completing surveys, though again not guaranteed).

Are there any legitimate free Midjourney options or trials?

Within Midjourney itself, the only genuine “free” access now seems to come from brief promotional trials.

Those are posted to the official Discord and have guardrails around things like capped generations and hours of availability.

If you’re looking for free image creation options today, check out some of these:

• Adobe Firefly supports Creative Cloud and offers credit-based pricing.
• Microsoft’s Copilot Designer generates daily boosts powered by DALL·E 3.
• Ideogram has a free tier with queue constraints.
• You can also run Stable Diffusion locally or via community platforms such as Hugging Face Spaces, trading convenience for setup and hardware.

Results vary depending on the model, but for most workflows these options are sufficient for exploration and drafting without a subscription.

Stretch your Midjourney budget with these practical tips

Use Relaxed for concepting and save Fast for finals or client deliverables. When you’re just testing ideas, lower the Quality parameter, then raise it for selected shots. Recycle seeds and structured prompts, spiraling ever so elegantly instead of reinventing the wheel. Don’t upscale or add unnecessary variations unless you’re good with a direction.

If you use Midjourney on a regular basis, annual billing reduces your effective monthly price by about 20%. If privacy is crucial, Pro’s Stealth mode is the way to go, while, through its unlimited Relaxed time allowance for $30/month, Standard provides the best value for most creators who can deal with longer queues.

Bottom line: what to expect from Midjourney access and cost

Midjourney is not free for newcomers, and the door on its open free trial continues to be closed. To make images, you need a subscription — most people will opt for the Standard plan’s unlimited Relaxed mode; power users or pros might like Pro. Keep an eye out for occasional promotional trials, but don’t plan your workflow around them. If $0 access is a must-have, search the list of believable alternatives above until you feel good about jumping in.