Midjourney
Midjourney is a subscription-only AI image and video generator reached through its website, a Discord bot or an official MCP server. Every prompt returns four images, which you can then vary, upscale, repaint or extend.
What is Midjourney?
Midjourney is an AI image and video generator published by Midjourney, Inc., a company based at 611 Gateway Blvd in South San Francisco. Its own homepage calls it an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species, while the privacy policy describes a communications technology incubator providing image generation to augment human creativity. The team is given as 60 people on the homepage and around 70 on the careers page, spread across offices in San Francisco, London and Manhattan.
The product works the same way on two surfaces whose settings stay in sync: the website and a Discord bot on the official server. You write a prompt, and the model returns a grid of four images. From there the loop is iterative rather than one-shot: you can ask for a subtle or strong variation of any frame, upscale it, repaint a masked region, zoom out to reveal more of the scene, or extend the picture past any edge. Thirteen documented parameters sit at the end of the prompt, covering aspect ratio, model version, stylisation, chaos, negative terms, seed, raw mode, style reference, quality, personalisation, weirdness, seamless tiling and higher resolution. The banner on the homepage announced V8.2 in August 2026. Video generation is included, in SD on every plan and in HD from the Standard tier.
Access is paid only. Four subscription tiers run from $10 to $120 a month, there is no free plan and no free trial on either surface, and each tier buys a monthly allowance of Fast GPU time, with unlimited Relax generation from Standard upwards and extra time at $4 an hour. Two consequences deserve attention. Creations are public and remixable by the community by default; privacy comes with Stealth Mode, which starts on the Pro plan. And while you own your output, the terms grant Midjourney a perpetual, irrevocable licence over both prompts and results.
Since June 2026 an official MCP server at mcp.midjourney.com exposes ten tools to any compatible assistant, using OAuth rather than API keys, and requires a Mega subscription. Midjourney is self-funded, with a careers page that displays a counter reading zero dollars raised.
What it does
- Generate a grid of four images from a text prompt
- Generate video, in SD on every plan and in HD from the Standard tier up
- Refine a result with variations, upscaling, inpainting, zoom out and lateral extension
- Hold a consistent look with style references (--sref) and personalisation profiles (--p)
- Steer output with 13 documented parameters, from aspect ratio to chaos, seed and seamless tiling
- Keep creations private with Stealth Mode on the Pro and Mega plans
- Drive generation from an AI assistant through the official MCP server
When to use Midjourney / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Midjourney is the right fit.
When to use Midjourney
- Concept artists, illustrators and art directors who need to explore a visual direction quickly and iterate on four proposals per prompt rather than one.
- Brand and marketing teams producing a high volume of original visuals, who can hold a house style across assets with style references (--sref) and personalisation profiles (--p).
- Freelance designers and small studios, since commercial use of the output is included from the $10 entry tier as long as the client business grosses under $1,000,000 a year.
- Film, animation and games teams building storyboards, mood boards and pre-visualisation, with video generation and an editor that repaints, zooms out and extends existing frames.
- Teams already living in Discord, and developers who want to drive generation from an AI assistant through the official MCP server on the Mega plan.
When not to use Midjourney
- Anyone who needs to try before paying: there is no free plan and no free trial on the website or in Discord, so evaluation always starts with a card.
- Users who need privacy by default, since creations are public and remixable unless you pay for Stealth Mode, which starts on the $60 Pro plan.
- Regulated or procurement-driven organisations, which will find no DPA, no subprocessor list and no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification published anywhere on the site.
- European teams with a data residency requirement: personal data is stored on Midjourney servers in the United States, with no EU option and no Article 27 representative named.
- Anyone planning to script or automate the service, which the terms forbid outside the official MCP server, itself reserved for the top Mega tier.
How to use Midjourney
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create an account on the Midjourney website, signing in with Google or Discord
- Take out a subscription: nothing generates without one, and no free trial is offered
- Type a prompt into the Imagine bar and wait for the grid of four images to render
- Append parameters to steer the result, such as aspect ratio, model version, stylisation or a negative prompt
- Pick the frame you like and ask for a subtle or strong variation of it
- Upscale the chosen image, then repaint a masked area, zoom out or extend it sideways as needed
- Reuse a look across a series with a style reference URL or your own personalisation profile
- Switch on Stealth Mode from the settings panel, the --stealth parameter or the Discord command, if you are on Pro or Mega
- Sort and filter your output on the Create and Organize pages, and group it into mood boards
- Optionally add the MCP server URL to an AI assistant on the Mega plan, then authorise it once in the browser
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Aesthetic quality is the company's stated obsession, and the four-image grid makes exploration fast rather than one-shot
- The editor keeps the whole loop in one place: variation, upscaling, inpainting, zoom out and lateral extension
- Commercial use of the output is included from the $10 entry tier for businesses under $1,000,000 in revenue
- You keep ownership of what you made even after cancelling, and a 20% discount applies to annual commitments
- Unlimited Relax image generation from the $30 Standard plan removes the anxiety of watching a GPU counter
- Web and Discord are genuinely equivalent surfaces with synchronised settings, and rating images earns free Fast time
- An official MCP server plugs the tool into AI assistants in one line of configuration, with no API key to manage
Cons
- No free plan and no free trial: there is no way to judge the output quality before paying
- Privacy is a paid feature, since creations are public and remixable until you reach the $60 Pro plan
- The perpetual, irrevocable and sublicensable licence granted to Midjourney over prompts and outputs survives termination
- Data governance is thin: no DPA, no subprocessor list, no security certification, and US-only hosting
- The terms disclaim any commitment on quality, stability, uptime or reliability, and allow suspension at any time
- Product support has no email address at all, only Discord and the help centre; the published mailbox covers billing
- Automated access is forbidden outside the MCP server, which is itself locked to the most expensive tier
Pricing & Plans
There is no free plan and no free trial, on the website or in Discord. Access is by subscription only, and the lowest price point is the Basic plan at USD 10.00 per month, or USD 96.00 per year, which works out at USD 8.00 a month under the 20% annual discount. Additional Fast GPU time is charged at USD 4.00 per hour on every tier, and the current subscription period is not refunded on cancellation.
- 3.3 hours of Fast GPU time a month (200 minutes)
- no Relax mode
- SD video
- 3 concurrent Fast image prompts
- 1 video prompt
- repeat and permutation jobs up to 4
- 10 queued jobs
- no Stealth Mode.
- 15 hours of Fast GPU time a month
- unlimited Relax image generation
- SD and HD video
- 3 concurrent image prompts in Fast or Relax
- 3 video prompts
- repeat and permutation jobs up to 10
- no Stealth Mode.
- 30 hours of Fast GPU time a month
- unlimited Relax images and SD video
- SD and HD video
- 12 concurrent image prompts in Fast or 3 in Relax
- 6 video prompts in Fast or 3 in Relax
- repeat and permutation jobs up to 40
- Stealth Mode included.
- 60 hours of Fast GPU time a month
- unlimited Relax images and SD video
- SD and HD video
- 12 concurrent image prompts in Fast or 3 in Relax
- 12 video prompts in Fast or 3 in Relax
- repeat and permutation jobs up to 40
- Stealth Mode included
- and the MCP server.
- work in Discord direct messages
- earn free Fast GPU time by rating images
- buy extra GPU time at USD 4 an hour
- and use the output under Midjourney's General Commercial Terms. The publisher notes that plan availability and features may change.
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Midjourney handles your data.
GDPR overview
The letters GDPR appear nowhere on the pages collected, and the site never claims compliance in so many words. The privacy policy of 2 June 2025 does, however, carry a Europe section for the EEA, Switzerland and the UK. It names its legal bases (consent, performance of a contract, legitimate interests, legal obligation), states that transfers rely on European Commission-approved standard contractual clauses plus further safeguards where appropriate, and lists rights of access, correction, erasure, objection, restriction, portability, withdrawal of consent and complaint to a supervisory authority. Rights are exercised through the account page rather than by email. Non-essential cookies require explicit consent, revocable in Privacy Settings. No EU Article 27 representative, no data protection officer, no privacy mailbox and no DPA are published.
Who owns the data?
Under section 4 of the terms, you own every asset you create, as far as applicable law allows, and you keep that ownership even after you downgrade or cancel. Two exceptions apply: upscaling another member's image leaves it with its original creator, and a company grossing over $1,000,000 a year must hold a Pro or Mega plan for its assets to belong to it. In exchange, you grant Midjourney, its affiliates, successors and assigns a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicensable, royalty-free and irrevocable copyright licence over both your inputs and your outputs. That licence survives termination for any reason, and by default your content is publicly visible and remixable by the community.
Reuse rights
For your own creations, yes. The terms let you use the images and videos you generate in just about any way you want, including commercially, without asking Midjourney for permission, and that right persists after the subscription ends. The one commercial condition is the revenue threshold: a business, or an employee of a business, above $1,000,000 in yearly revenue must be on the Pro or Mega plan to own and use the output. For other members' work the answer is no: republishing or redistributing someone else's creation requires their permission, and upscaling an image does not transfer its ownership. Midjourney also states plainly that it cannot advise on copyright, which differs between jurisdictions, and recommends taking legal advice.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Midjourney's privacy FAQ states that the personal information you provide is stored on Midjourney servers in the United States. No other hosting country or region is named, and no data residency option is offered. The privacy policy adds that information is processed at the company's operating offices and wherever the parties involved are located, so it may cross borders into jurisdictions with different protection standards; where individuals in the EEA, Switzerland or the UK are concerned, transfers rely on European Commission-approved standard contractual clauses with further safeguards where appropriate. Anything you store on Discord is held and controlled by Discord under its own policy, not Midjourney's. Beyond Stripe for billing and Discord for the bot, no processor is named, no subprocessor list is published, no data processing agreement is offered, and no hosting or security certification such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001 is claimed anywhere on the site.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Midjourney.
- Everything you make is public and remixable by default; even with Stealth Mode on, anything created in a public Discord channel or web room stays visible, and trashed creations can still surface through Explore, ranking, a job ID or a direct URL.
- The licence you grant Midjourney over your prompts and outputs is perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable and sublicensable, and it survives the end of the agreement, whoever ends it.
- The $1,000,000 revenue threshold is easy to overlook: above it, a company must hold a Pro or Mega plan for its assets to belong to it, and upscaling another member's image never transfers ownership.
- Disputes go to binding arbitration in Santa Clara County, California, with a jury waiver and a one-year window to bring a claim; the current subscription period is never refunded.
- Midjourney reserves the right to suspend or ban any account at any time and for any reason, and offers no guarantee of quality, stability, uptime or reliability, so building a production dependency on it is a risk it explicitly declines.
- Community rules forbid using the service for political campaigns or to influence an election, and forbid misleading anyone about the nature or source of a generated asset, an easy line to cross once images look photographic.
- Leaning on generated imagery can quietly erode the habit of sketching, observing and deciding for yourself; the model proposes a look before you have formed one, and the speed of four options makes it tempting to accept rather than to choose.
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Very low to start, moderate to master. Nothing is installed: you create an account, sign in with Google or Discord, subscribe, and type into the Imagine bar. The Discord route means joining the official server and using slash commands. The real learning curve is the prompt language, with thirteen parameters and the Fast and Relax GPU modes to understand. The MCP route is one configuration line and no API key, but it needs a Mega plan, a browser OAuth step, and awareness of the pitfalls the publisher documents around signed-in sessions and personalisation profiles.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Midjourney
Fundraising
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free plan or a free trial of Midjourney?
How much does Midjourney cost?
Can I use the images and videos commercially?
Who owns what I generate?
Are my creations private?
Does Midjourney have an API?
Is there a Midjourney mobile app?
What is the minimum age to use Midjourney?
Where is my data stored, and how do I delete it?
Does Midjourney sell my personal data?
Should you pick Midjourney?
Midjourney remains one of the few image generators bought for its taste rather than its feature list, and the four-image grid followed by variation, upscaling, inpainting and extension makes it a genuine exploration tool rather than a slot machine. Video, style references and personalisation profiles have turned it into something a studio can build a house look on, and the arrival of an official MCP server in 2026 finally opens a sanctioned route to automation.
The reservations are structural rather than incidental. There is no free plan and no free trial, so you commit money before seeing what the model does with your own prompts. Privacy is a paid feature: creations are public and remixable until the $60 Pro tier. The terms grant Midjourney a perpetual and irrevocable licence over your prompts and results, which matters in any client or agency context, and they disclaim every commitment on quality, uptime and reliability. Anyone with a procurement checklist will find little to fill it with: no DPA, no subprocessor list, no security certification, US-only hosting, no named EU representative, no retention periods in figures, and no documented way to keep customer content out of model training.
What that leaves is a tool with an unusually clear profile. For individual creatives and small teams who value image quality above governance paperwork, the entry ticket is modest and the commercial rights are generous from the first tier. For a regulated organisation, or one that needs European data residency and contractual guarantees, the gaps are not details. Midjourney is self-funded and answers to no investor, which explains both the independence of its product decisions and the sparseness of its enterprise apparatus.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Opens in a new window.