Leonardo.ai review
Leonardo.ai creates AI images, videos, and editable brand visuals.
Leonardo.ai is a browser-based creative suite for generating images, short videos, upscaled assets, and guided edits from prompts or references. It fits designers, marketers, game artists, and creators who need many visual directions quickly, with token-based plans and model choice built in.
What Leonardo.ai actually is
Leonardo.ai is built for fast visual iteration rather than one-off image prompts.
Where the creative workflow stands out
- Generation breadth: It covers text-to-image, image-to-image, image editing, upscaling, background removal, Realtime Canvas, Flow State, and video generation from the same web app.
- Model choice: The platform includes first-party models such as Lucid Origin, Lucid Realism, Phoenix 1.0, and Phoenix 0.9, plus selected third-party models.
- Reference control: Paid plans support up to 6 image guidance references, which helps keep pose, composition, style, or subject direction closer to the brief.
- Training: Essential, Premium, and Ultimate include 10, 20, and 50 personal AI model trainings per month respectively.
Plans, tokens, and rights
| Plan | Monthly price | Core allowance |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 150 fast tokens per day, public creations, 1 collection |
| Essential | $12 | 8,500 fast tokens per month, private creations, 2 concurrent generations |
| Premium | $30 | 25,000 fast tokens, 75,000 token bank, relaxed image generation on selected models |
| Ultimate | $60 | 60,000 fast tokens, 180,000 token bank, relaxed image and video generation on selected models |
Prices exclude tax. Paid subscribers retain ownership and intellectual property rights in generated images, while free users receive a commercial-use licence but Leonardo.ai keeps broader rights to use public free-tier outputs.
The short version
Pros and cons
What's genuinely good
- The free plan gives 150 fast tokens every day, enough to test prompts and workflows before paying.
- Model variety is useful in practice because first-party and third-party options behave differently for realism, illustration, video, and brand mockups.
- Private generations start on the $12 Essential plan, which matters for client concepts and unpublished campaign work.
- The integrated editor, upscaler, canvas, and video tools reduce the export-and-reupload loop common in separate AI tools.
What holds it back
- Free-plan creations are public, so it is a poor fit for confidential client work or unreleased product visuals.
- Token costs are not fixed per image because model, resolution, video, upscaling, and post-processing choices change the charge.
- Relaxed generation excludes Flow State and listed third-party models, so heavy use can still require paid tokens after the allowance runs down.
- The best video allowance sits on the $60 Ultimate plan, which raises the entry cost for creators focused mainly on motion.
- Exact text, logos, hands, and product details still need checking and cleanup, especially before print, packaging, or paid ads.
Should you use Leonardo.ai?
Leonardo.ai is one of the stronger all-in-one AI visual workspaces because it combines generation, controlled editing, model training, and video in a single browser app. The token system takes a little attention, but the paid plans are practical if you create visual options every week rather than occasional novelty images.
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