Best background removal APIs in 2026: free tiers and prices

The main APIs at a glance

Only figures we could read on each provider's own page, or on a page linked in the tables below. “Not in our notes” means we have not checked it, not that the feature is missing.

FAPIhub, models hosted on fal and PicWish are in the published prices table. On price alone, LassoCut is not the cheapest: see price per image.

What is a background removal API?

A web service that takes an image and returns the subject on a transparent background, so your code, store or automation can cut out images without anyone opening an editor. You send the image (a file, a URL or base64) with an API key, and get back a PNG, a WebP or a JSON response. Providers charge per image, by credit pack or by monthly plan, and most offer a small free allowance for testing.

If you do not write code, the same result is available in a browser: try LassoCut on one image on the home page, or a whole folder with the batch tool.

How we chose

• Which APIs: the one the remove.bg FAQ points to (Leonardo.Ai), APIs that publish their prices and say how to move remove.bg code, and APIs that come up in published comparisons.
• What we read: each provider's own pricing or documentation page, on the date in each source note (27 September or 1 October 2026). Where a figure comes from a third-party article, the table says so.
• What we did not do: we have not run a quality benchmark of the other APIs and make no claim about their cut-outs. We have only tested LassoCut.
• Who we are: LassoCut, one of the APIs listed. Where another API is cheaper or gives more for free, this page says so.

What we compare

• Price per image at the same volume: 1,000, 10,000 and 100,000 full-size images.
• Compatibility with the remove.bg API: whether existing requests keep working, which matters after the self-service remove.bg API stops on 1 December 2026 (remove.bg FAQ).
• Plugins and integrations: whether the same account works in design tools and automation platforms.
• Subscription or not: a monthly plan, a one-time pack, or pay per use.

Not a developer? You can try LassoCut on one image on the home page, with no account, or process a whole folder with the batch tool. Web tools are compared in the remove.bg alternatives guide.

Published prices

Also worth a look, pricing not checked by us: Adobe Firefly Services and Cloudinary. To run a model on your own machine, there is Rembg (listed on AlternativeTo).

Free tiers and free API keys

What each provider gives for free, as its own page states it. A free allowance is for testing; check the limits before you rely on it in production.

LassoCut is not the most generous free tier. Poof's free plan covers 100 full-resolution images a month, while LassoCut's free previews are small images.

A LassoCut call with curl

Create a free account to get a key, then send an image. size=auto picks the largest size your balance allows, so a free account gets a preview.

curl --fail-with-body -H "X-Api-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
     -F "image_file=@photo.jpg" \
     -F "size=auto" \
     -o out.png \
     https://api.lassocut.com/v1.0/removebg

The same request works with code written for the remove.bg API once you change the base URL and the key. More in the API reference and the guides for curl, Python, Node.js and PHP.

Price per image at the same volume

What one full-size image costs if you process exactly this many. LassoCut: the pack of that size. Photoroom and Poof: the smallest monthly plan that covers the volume, divided by the number of images. Leonardo.Ai and Bria on fal: their flat per-image price. FAPIhub: not stated per volume (its figures are in the table above).

Poof: $9 for 1,000 images on its 2,000-image plan, $29 for 10,000, and $299 for 100,000 on its 200,000-image plan. A subscription is billed every month; a LassoCut pack is paid once and its credits do not expire while the account is open.

On price alone, LassoCut is not the cheapest. Poof publishes lower prices per image at every volume in this table, and FAPIhub states a lower price per image, and Photoroom's Basic plan is lower at 1,000 images. Bria on fal costs less per image than LassoCut at 1,000 and 10,000 images, and more at 100,000. LassoCut costs less per image than Leonardo.Ai at every volume in this table.

Existing code written for the remove.bg API

If you call the remove.bg API today, the self-service API stops accepting requests from 1 December 2026 (remove.bg FAQ). Here is what each provider says about keeping that code. We have only tested LassoCut.

With LassoCut, the request itself stays the same:

# the only line you change
- https://api.remove.bg/v1.0/removebg
+ https://api.lassocut.com/v1.0/removebg

# same header, same form fields
  X-Api-Key: YOUR_LASSOCUT_KEY
  image_file=@photo.jpg  size=auto  format=png

Which one for which need

• Lowest cost at high volume, and you can change your code: Poof and models hosted on fal publish, and FAPIhub states, lower prices per image than LassoCut.
• Existing remove.bg API code you do not want to rewrite: LassoCut, where you change the base URL and the key. Photoroom says you change the endpoint URL and the key; Poof says you switch the API domain.
• No subscription: LassoCut and Pixian.ai sell credit packs; fal charges per use.
• The same account in design tools and automations: LassoCut has plugins and integrations for Photoshop, Figma, WordPress and WooCommerce, GIMP 3, Zapier, Make, n8n and a CLI (platforms).
• Image editing beyond background removal: Photoroom's Plus plan adds staging and editing. LassoCut only removes backgrounds.
• Images that never leave your machines: run a local tool such as Rembg yourself, and handle hosting and updates on your side. We compare the two approaches in rembg or a hosted API.

Questions

What to know about LassoCut

• A new service from a small independent company, JAUPIN Design LLC.
• Credits are sold to businesses only.
• The free allowance is 50 previews a month (up to 0.25 megapixel); full-size images need credits.
• Our models are not remove.bg's, so edges will not be pixel-identical.
• Drop and cast shadows are drawn (shadow_type=cast gives cars a shadow too); the car shadow style is not drawn yet.

Beyond what remove.bg offers, LassoCut adds marketplace presets (preset=amazon, with a compliance check), a free POST /v1.0/compose endpoint and a cast shadow.

Start with the API reference, the guides for curl, Python, Node.js and PHP, or the migration guide if you have remove.bg code.

remove.bg is a trademark of Canva Austria GmbH. Other names are trademarks of their owners. References are for identification and comparison only.