Background removal APIs are priced three ways: monthly subscriptions with an image quota, prepaid credits, or pay-per-call through a marketplace. The headline per-image number is only part of the cost. What you pay also depends on the monthly minimum, whether unused credits expire, and what the provider counts as "one image".
This post covers how bgbuster is priced, what that means at a few common volumes, and how it compares to other providers' published prices.
How bgbuster charges
- One credit per successful request. That applies to a plain cutout (
/images/remove-background) and to a chained edit (/images/edit). Removing the background, filling it with white, resizing, and trimming in one request is still one credit. - Failed requests are free. Credits are only deducted after a transformation succeeds, so invalid inputs, timeouts, and retries don't cost anything.
- No subscription, and credits never expire. Buy a pack when you need one, and use it this month or next year.
| Pack | Price | Images | Per image |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pixel | €5 | 1,500 | €0.0033 |
| Canvas | €15 | 6,000 | €0.0025 |
| Studio | €50 | 25,000 | €0.0020 |
| Agency | €100 | 60,000 | €0.0017 |
What common volumes cost
Since credits don't expire, rounding up to the next pack isn't wasted. The extra credits carry over.
| You need | Cheapest way to cover it | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 images | 1 × Pixel (500 left over) | €5 |
| 10,000 images | 2 × Canvas (2,000 left over) | €30 |
| 100,000 images | Agency + Studio + 2 × Canvas + 2 × Pixel | €190 |
| 100,000 images, simpler | 2 × Agency (20,000 left over) | €200 |
For a monthly workload, that's the cost per month with no minimum. A slow month costs less, and a month with no images costs nothing.
How other providers price it
These figures were read from each provider's own pricing page in September 2026 unless marked approximate. Prices change, so check their sites before deciding.
| Provider | Model | Entry price | Per image at that tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| remove.bg | Subscription or one-time packs | €9/month for 40 credits, or €3 for 3 credits | €0.225 (subscription), €1 (one-time) |
| Photoroom | Subscription | Basic: €20/month for 1,000 images | €0.02 (Basic), €0.10 (Plus) |
| Clipdrop | Subscription | Essential: €9/month for 700 calls | ~€0.013 |
| Slazzer | Volume-based | Approximate | ~€0.008 at low volume, lower with scale |
| PixelAPI | Pay-per-use | Approximate | ~€0.0025 |
| poof.bg | Pay-per-use | Approximate | ~€0.001 |
| FAPIhub | Prepaid, marketplace | Approximate | from ~€0.001 |
| bgbuster | Prepaid credits | €5 for 1,500 | €0.0033 down to €0.0017 |
A few details from those pages matter as much as the numbers:
- remove.bg's standalone API shuts down on December 1, 2026, and one-time credits expire at shutdown. The first 50 API calls each month are free until then. If you're on it now, see the migration guide.
- Photoroom's Basic plan covers background removal. Plus (€100/month) adds its generative features: AI backgrounds, shadows, object removal, and upscaling. It also offers 1,000 free images in sandbox mode for testing.
- FAPIhub is a marketplace, so the model handling your request can change without notice, and quality and latency can vary between calls.
- poof.bg and FAPIhub are cheaper per image than bgbuster. If price is the only thing that matters and you've tested their output on your images, they're worth a look.
For side-by-side feature comparisons, see bgbuster vs remove.bg, Photoroom, Clipdrop, and others.
What to check besides the per-image price
The monthly minimum. A subscription charges its base fee whether you process 10 images or 1,000. For irregular workloads, like seasonal catalog updates or a feature most users rarely trigger, the minimum often dominates the bill.
Expiry. Credits that expire at the end of a billing period or a promotion effectively raise the per-image price for anyone who doesn't use all of them.
What counts as one image. Some providers charge background removal and follow-up edits separately. If you need a cutout plus a white background plus a resize, check whether that's one charge or three. With bgbuster it's one.
Whether failures are billed. On a large batch, a few percent of requests fail on bad inputs or timeouts. If those are billed, your real cost is higher than the listed price.
Provider risk. The cheapest API is expensive if it disappears. remove.bg shows it happens even to established players, and migrating costs engineering time.
Quality on your images. A lower price stops mattering if someone has to fix the edges by hand. Test each candidate on a sample of your own hardest images, such as hair, glass, and products close in color to the background, before comparing prices.
Next steps
- Buy credits. Packs start at €5.
- Read the API guide to see what one request can do.
- Estimate a catalog run with the product photo guide.