Midjourney: Pricing, V8.2 & Thinking Mode

Midjourney is the AI image generator now on V8.2, testing a Thinking mode and shared folders. See 2026 pricing from $10 a month and what each plan adds.

Updated October 12, 2026. We first covered Midjourney in 2023, when it lived almost entirely inside Discord. A lot has changed: it now runs as a full web app at midjourney.com, has its own edit model and video generation, and ships changes almost every week. This review covers what Midjourney is today, what is new this month and what each plan costs.

What is Midjourney?

Midjourney is an AI image generator from the independent research lab of the same name. You type a prompt, optionally add image or style references, and it returns a grid of images that you can vary, upscale, edit or animate. It is known for a strong default look: images tend to be more stylized and polished than those from most rivals, which is why designers, concept artists and marketers still pick it for mood boards and key art.

You can use it on the web, where most new features land first, or through the Midjourney Discord server. New tools are usually tested on alpha.midjourney.com before they reach everyone.

Midjourney V8.2 and V8.1

According to Midjourney’s version guide, V8.2 has been the default model since July 24, 2026. It focuses on aesthetics, image quality and Personalization, and it introduced a new Edit Model that replaces Omni Reference, Character Reference and the Retexture tool. Standard (SD) images start at 1024 × 1024 pixels and can be upscaled to 2048 × 2048, while HD images generate at 2048 × 2048 directly.

V8.1, released on April 14, 2026, is still available. Midjourney calls it its fastest model, with standard jobs rendering about 4 to 5 times faster than earlier versions, better prompt reading and an optional Raw mode that removes the default styling. HD jobs cost 1.3 minutes of GPU time against 0.8 minutes for SD, which matters if you are on a plan with limited Fast hours. Draft mode on V8.1 and V8.2 produces a 24-image grid for quick exploration.

What’s new in Midjourney (October 2026)

Thinking mode (testing). On October 8, 2026, Midjourney started testing a Thinking mode on its alpha site. You can rerun a V8.2 job (standard or edit) with thinking: the model looks at its own image, finds where it missed your prompt, such as wrong objects, layout, anatomy or text, and generates again. Midjourney says this improves prompt accuracy, typography and coherence in its tests, and that it may later become a broader thinking option.

Shared folders. The October 7 alpha changelog added shared folders, Midjourney’s first real collaboration feature. You invite people by username as Collaborators, who can generate straight into the folder, or Viewers, who can browse. You can also share by link. One catch: sharing does not change privacy, so non-stealth images can still appear on Explore and on profiles even inside a private folder.

Smaller recent changes: better inpainting and outpainting with the edit model (September 24), seamless –tile output on V8.1 and V8.2, live style previews in the Styles sidebar, default parameters you can save per account or folder, and Korean language support.

Our take: Thinking mode targets Midjourney’s oldest weakness, which is following long, specific prompts and rendering text. If it works as described, it narrows the gap with prompt-faithful models. It is still an alpha test, so judge Midjourney today on V8.2 alone.

Midjourney Pricing (2026)

All Midjourney plans are subscriptions, and annual billing saves 20%. We checked Midjourney’s official plan comparison on October 12, 2026.

Plan	Monthly	Annual	Fast GPU time	Relax mode
Basic	$10/mo	$96/yr ($8/mo)	3.3 hours (200 minutes)	None
Standard	$30/mo	$288/yr ($24/mo)	15 hours	Unlimited images
Pro	$60/mo	$576/yr ($48/mo)	30 hours	Unlimited images and SD video
Mega	$120/mo	$1,152/yr ($96/mo)	60 hours	Unlimited images and SD video

• Extra Fast time: $4 per GPU hour on any plan.
• Video: Basic makes SD video only; Standard and up add HD video.
• Privacy: Stealth Mode, which keeps your images and videos off public galleries, is only on Pro and Mega.
• Commercial use: all plans allow commercial use, but companies with more than $1 million a year in gross revenue must be on Pro or Mega.

Is Midjourney free? No. Midjourney’s help center says there is no free trial on Midjourney itself; a limited trial exists only in the separate niji · journey mobile app. Basic at $10 a month is the cheapest way in, but Standard at $30 is the better value for regular users because Relax mode makes image generation unlimited.

Best use cases

• Concept art and mood boards: fast, high-style exploration with Draft mode and style references.
• Marketing visuals: polished hero images and social graphics, with HD output at 2K.
• Personal style: Personalization profiles that learn your taste from your ratings.
• Team projects: shared folders for agencies and small studios.

Limitations

• No free plan or trial: you must subscribe to generate.
• Public by default: privacy needs Pro or Mega.
• Prompt precision: exact layouts and long text are still harder than in layout-driven models, which Thinking mode is meant to fix.
• New features start in alpha: Thinking mode and shared folders are early versions.

Midjourney alternatives

• FLUX 3: Black Forest Labs’ model with bounding-box layouts and pay-per-image pricing.
• Recraft: strong for vector graphics, brand styles and text in images.
• Krea AI: real-time generation and many models in one app.

Midjourney is still the AI image generator to beat on pure look and style, and V8.2 with its Edit Model makes it far more practical than the Discord-only tool we reviewed in 2023. Standard at $30 a month is the plan most people should pick.

If you need exact layouts, readable text or a free tier, look at FLUX 3 or Recraft as well, and keep an eye on Thinking mode, which could close Midjourney’s biggest gap.