How image upscaler pricing works with credits
Images Upscale is a browser-based AI image upscaler. The upscaler enlarges JPG, PNG and WebP images by 2x or 4x with Real-ESRGAN models running on fal.ai GPUs, and two image tools sit beside it: a background remover and an alt-text generator that writes image descriptions. Every upscaler job and tool run is paid for in one unit, the credit.
Credits reach your account in two ways: free credits every day, for guests and signed-in users alike, and credit packs, one-time payments in US dollars with no renewal. A job costs the same credits whichever kind pays, so the image upscaler pricing below applies to both.
What each upscaler job costs in credits
An upscaler job is priced by the scale you choose, not by the size of your file. A 2x upscale costs 1 credit. A 4x upscale costs 2 credits, and its output has four times the pixel count of a 2x result. Background removal and alt-text generation each cost 1 credit per image. The upscaler mode, whether Basic, Photo, Anime or Screenshot, does not change the price.
Large photos follow a fixed rule. In Basic, Photo and Screenshot modes the upscaler works from an input of up to about 6 megapixels at 2x and 2.25 at 4x, Anime mode from up to about 6, and the result is 2x or 4x that input on each side. A large photo therefore costs no more than a small one, and its 4x Photo-mode result comes out at roughly 36 megapixels.
Daily free credits and when they are enough
Everyone can use the upscaler with 2 free credits per day, as a guest or signed in, with no card needed. Signing in keeps your results in a workspace and lets you buy credit packs. Free credits reset at 00:00 UTC and do not roll over, so an unused allowance never piles up into a larger balance.
For light use, the daily free credits are often all you need. Two free credits cover two 2x upscales, one 4x upscale, or one 2x upscale plus one background removal. If your images arrive a few at a time and you can wait for the next reset, the AI image upscaler costs nothing and there is no reason to buy credits.
When to buy credit packs: worked examples
The practical question behind image upscaler pricing is when to stop relying on free credits. Credit packs earn their price when upscaler work arrives in a batch or on a deadline. Take 40 product photos that need 4x output: at 2 credits each, the batch costs 80 credits. On free credits alone, you can run one 4x upscaler job a day, so the batch would stretch over 40 days. A Starter pack covers it the same day with 30 credits to spare.
Mixed work is priced the same way. 100 credits buy 100 upscales at 2x, 50 at 4x, or a combination such as 30 photos at 4x (60 credits) plus 40 background removals (40 credits).
Comparing the Starter, Pro and Studio credit packs
All three packs are one-time purchases, and their credits buy the same jobs. Each pack adds bonus credits to its base amount: Starter costs $9.99 for 110 credits (100 plus 10%), about 9.1¢ per credit; Pro costs $19.99 for 360 (300 plus 20%), about 5.6¢; Studio costs $49.99 for 1,300 (1,000 plus 30%), about 3.8¢. A first purchase made within 48 hours of signing up adds another 30% of the base credits, so that Pro pack brings 450.
On the upscaler, a 4x job works out to about 18.2¢ per image on Starter, 11.1¢ on Pro and 7.7¢ on Studio, while a 2x job works out to about 9.1¢, 5.6¢ and 3.8¢. Credits never expire, but a bigger pack is still money paid up front, so buy for the work you can already see coming.
One-time credit packs versus a monthly subscription
A common alternative to the AI image upscaler pricing on this page is a monthly subscription: a fixed fee every billing cycle for an allowance. Its weak spot is the quiet month, when the fee is due whether or not you upscale anything and an unused allowance may not carry over.
Credit packs work the other way around. You pay once, the credits stay on your account until you use them, and there is nothing to cancel later. If you use the upscaler heavily one month and not at all the next, you have paid only for the work you actually did. Signed-in users keep receiving daily free credits on top of any pack, so a light week may cost nothing.
Checkout, sales tax and invoices through Creem
Payments for credit packs are processed by Creem, which acts as the Merchant of Record. A Merchant of Record is the business that is formally the seller in the transaction, so Creem runs the checkout, processes the card payment, handles any sales tax or VAT that applies to your purchase and provides the invoice.
Buying requires being signed in, so purchased credits attach to your account. Prices are in US dollars, and billing questions go to support@images-upscale.com.
Refunds, failed jobs and how long files are kept
Money refunds for credit packs are handled on request under the refund policy, for example after a duplicate charge, a wrong pack whose credits are unused, or credits that never arrived. Credits already spent on jobs are generally not refundable.
To ask, email support@images-upscale.com with your order ID; the refund policy page has the full terms. Failed jobs need no request: if an upscaler job fails on our side, its credits come back automatically, free or purchased.
As a guest, uploads and results are deleted after 7 days. Signed in, every result is saved in your workspace until you delete it, and you can download a selection as one ZIP.
Which AI models run your images
Upscaling uses Real-ESRGAN on fal.ai GPUs (fal-ai/esrgan): RealESRGAN_x4plus for Basic, Photo and Screenshot modes and RealESRGAN_x4plus_anime_6B for Anime mode. Transparent PNGs run through the same model, colours and transparency side by side, and are joined again. Background removal uses BiRefNet v2 (fal-ai/birefnet/v2), also on fal.ai. Unblurring uses the SeedVR2 restoration model from ByteDance (fal-ai/seedvr/upscale/image) on fal.ai GPUs, at the original size. Alt text, image to prompt and image to text are handled by Google Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite through OpenRouter. None of them generate new images from text prompts.