PixelLab vs Retro Diffusion: pixel art pricing and licence
Side-by-side from each vendor's own pricing and terms pages, checked 2026-10-15. Prices shown exactly as displayed (promos and billing period noted).
The licence question first
- PixelLab: free tier: commercial use allowed. Paid: commercial use allowed (Commercial use; 'The user owns the rights to the generations with the exception of using them to train models'). Details
- Retro Diffusion: free tier: commercial use allowed. Paid: commercial use allowed (Same: outputs owned by the generator). Details
| PixelLab | Retro Diffusion | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Free trial: 40 fast generations, then 5 daily slower generations (store up to 20); images up to 200x200 | Free starting balance for new accounts ('enough for dozens of generations with RD Fast'), no card required |
| Paid price (as shown) | Tier 1 $12/mo (2,000 gens); Tier 2 $24/mo (5,000); Tier 3 $50/mo (10,000) | Pay per generation from prepaid balance: RD Pro $0.18/image; RD Plus $0.06/image; RD Fast $0.03/image; animations from $0.07/clip |
| Credits / cost per asset | Some tools use more than one generation per image | $0.03-$0.18 per image depending on model; animations from $0.07 per clip |
| Licence: free tier | Commercial use allowed on free tier ('Use generated images commercially***') | Terms: outputs (including from free usage) are owned by the person who generated them |
| Licence: paid | Commercial use; 'The user owns the rights to the generations with the exception of using them to train models' | Same: outputs owned by the generator |
| Export / engines | Aseprite workflow and Pixelorama-based editor mentioned; engine export not stated | Low-poly 3D export for Godot, Unity, Unreal, Blender, Blockbench, Minecraft; SpriteFusion tileset export |
| API / MCP | API access and MCP 'AI Agent Toolkit' (Claude Code, Cursor) listed on free tier | HTTP API and hosted MCP server (homepage) |
| Affiliate | not stated | not stated |
Sources
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