Which image model to reach for, and when

Twelve image models is too many to hold in your head, and the differences that matter are not the ones the names suggest. Here is the shape of the catalog.

The price spread is 40×

Two entries in that table are worth stopping on.

Seedream 5 Lite charges the same for 3K as for 2K. There is no reason to run it at 2K. Set the size to 3K and take the free resolution.

GPT Image 2 costs 11 credits on auto and 1 credit on low. That is an eleven-fold difference on one dropdown, and auto is the default. If you are iterating on composition rather than producing a final, low is the same model reasoning about the same prompt at a tenth of the price. Switch up when the composition is settled.

Start with the three questions

Does it need to look like something specific? Then you need references, and that removes P-Image, FLUX Schnell and both Recraft models from the list, since all four are prompt-only. Everything else takes seven.

Does it need to be a vector? Then it is Recraft, and the choice is only between 3.5 credits at 1024×1024 and 21 at 2048×2048. Nothing else in the catalog emits SVG; the others produce a raster you would have to trace.

Is this a final, or a draft? Drafts belong on the half-credit tier or on GPT Image 2’s low. Twenty drafts at 0.5 credits costs less than one Nano Banana 2 at 4K, and you learn more from twenty compositions than from one crisp wrong one.

What each family is actually good at

Seedream 5 Lite is the default for a reason: three credits, seven references, eight aspect ratios including 21:9, and free 3K. If you have no opinion, start here.

Nano Banana 2 is the one to reach for when the aspect ratio is unusual. It takes fourteen, including 1:4, 4:1 and 8:1: banners, strips, tall panels that nothing else in the catalog will frame natively. It is also the most expensive per step of the mainstream image models once you go past 1K, so pick the resolution deliberately.

GPT Image 2 follows long, compositional instructions more literally than the others: several objects in stated spatial relationships, text that has to say a specific thing. That is what the premium tier buys. Use low while you are finding the composition.

The FLUX.2 family spans the widest resolution ladder, from 0.5 MP to 4 MP, and prices each rung separately. FLUX.2 Pro at 1 MP is 2.5 credits, which makes it one of the cheapest reference-capable models in the catalog. Max is the same ladder with a better model on it.

FLUX Schnell and P-Image are the half-credit tier. No references, 1 MP, one setting. They exist for volume: mood boards, thumbnails, twenty variations of a layout before you commit.

Recraft is the vector answer, and it is the only one.

The mistake worth avoiding

Reaching for the premium tier first. Almost every prompt that fails on Seedream 5 Lite fails on GPT Image 2 as well, because the problem is usually the prompt or a missing reference rather than the model, and finding that out costs three credits instead of eleven. Move up the ladder when a specific model’s specific strength is the thing you need, not as a general remedy.

Every model’s exact capacity, ratios and per-setting price is on its own page in the catalog, read straight from the same table the composer prices against.