Recraft – AI Tool Review

Most AI image generators give you a picture. Recraft gives you design assets — editable vector art, on-brand illustrations, icons and product mockups that stay consistent across a whole campaign. If you have tried a text-focused generator like Ideogram, Recraft is the design-first alternative built for marketers, founders and brand teams.

Key Features of Recraft

Recraft is built around professional design workflows rather than one-off image prompts:

• AI Vector Art: Generate true vector graphics — logos, icons and illustrations that export as SVG and scale to any size without losing quality, something raster-only tools cannot do.
• Text to Image: Create photorealistic images and illustrations from a prompt with Recraft’s own models, plus access to external models on paid plans.
• Brand Styles: Save a custom style with your colours, line weight and look, then reuse it across every asset so a full campaign stays visually consistent.
• Mockup Generator: Place your designs onto products, packaging and devices in realistic mockups directly on the canvas — no separate mockup tool needed.
• AI Image Editing Tools: Vectorizer, background remover, creative upscale, inpainting and outpainting are built in, so you can finish an asset without leaving Recraft.
• Design Canvas and Exports: An infinite, Figma-style canvas with layers and frames, and exports in PNG, JPG, SVG, TIFF and Lottie formats for print, web and motion work.

Recraft Pricing Plans

Recraft is a freemium tool with a permanent free plan, but read the licence terms carefully before using free images in client work:

• Free – $0: Daily credits to generate and edit images, access to the style library and basic tools. Important: free-plan images are public in the community gallery, are owned by Recraft, and are NOT licensed for commercial use.
• Basic – from $10/month billed annually: Around 1,000 credits per month, private generations, full commercial licence, and access to external image models.
• Pro – from $16/month billed annually: More monthly credits, everything in Basic, plus video generation and priority processing for heavier design workloads.
• Teams – from $18/seat/month billed annually: Shared team workspace, centralised billing and collaboration features for agencies and in-house design teams.

Credit counts and prices change from time to time, so check the current plans on the official Recraft website before subscribing. The key decision is simple: if you will use an image commercially, you need a paid plan.

How to Use Recraft

You can produce your first on-brand asset in minutes:

1. Create a free account: Sign up on the Recraft website — no card is required for the free plan.
2. Start a project: Open a new canvas and type a prompt describing the image, illustration or icon set you need.
3. Pick or create a style: Choose a built-in style, or save your brand colours and look as a custom style so future generations match automatically.
4. Refine on the canvas: Edit with the built-in tools — remove a background, upscale, vectorize, or drop the design into a product mockup.
5. Export your asset: Download in PNG, JPG, SVG or TIFF. Remember that commercial use requires a paid plan.

Pro tip: set up your brand style before generating a batch. Locking the palette and style first keeps a whole set consistent, in the same way a template keeps a Canva campaign on-brand.

Pros and Cons of Recraft

Pros:

• True vector output with SVG export — ideal for logos, icons and print work
• Custom brand styles keep large asset sets visually consistent
• Mockup generator, vectorizer, upscaler and background remover in one workspace
• Permanent free plan for testing and personal projects
• Access to multiple external AI models on paid plans

Cons:

• Free-plan images are public and cannot be used commercially
• Credit-based pricing means heavy generation days can run out mid-project
• Less focused on pure photorealism than a dedicated art tool like Midjourney
• Video generation is gated behind the Pro plan

Frequently Asked Questions