You already have GPT Image if you pay for ChatGPT Plus — it's bundled into the $20 plan you might already own. So the real question isn't "which is cheapest," it's "do you need something Plus can't do."
Midjourney's Basic tier is $10/month, Standard $30, Pro $60, Mega $120 — a straight ladder based on how many images you generate and whether you need private/stealth mode and faster GPU time. It's still the plan most working illustrators and concept artists reach for because the aesthetic output is a level above the rest, even if it's the fussiest about prompting.
Ideogram's superpower is legible text inside an image — a poster, a logo, a t-shirt mockup with words that don't come out as alien scribble. It runs on a credit system from free up to about $42/month, and if you only occasionally need a text-heavy graphic, the API at $0.03–$0.10 per image with no subscription at all is the cheaper path.
| Tool | Entry price | Best at |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT (GPT Image) | included in Plus, $20/mo | prompt-following, in-context edits |
| Midjourney | $10/mo | artistic quality, stylistic range |
| Ideogram | free–$42/mo, or pay-per-image | text rendering inside images |
Here's the trap: buying Midjourney and keeping ChatGPT Plus and adding Ideogram credits is an easy way to spend $70+/month on image generation without meaning to. Most people only need one primary tool plus the occasional pay-per-image top-up for the one thing it's bad at.
If you already have Plus, start there — GPT Image follows instructions well enough for most marketing and product work. Add Midjourney only when the brief is genuinely about visual style. Reach for Ideogram, subscription or not, the moment text-in-image becomes a recurring need rather than a one-off.