Which AI platform should a creative team choose? It depends on whose provider accounts you want the work to run on and who will operate the tools. If designers want one app with many models and are happy to pay the app's credits, a creative suite such as Krea, Magnific (formerly Freepik), Runway, Adobe Firefly or Figma Weave is the shortest path. If you have developers building your own tools, model APIs such as fal, Replicate or OpenRouter's image API bill per output or per second. If your company already pays Google, OpenAI, fal or other providers and wants the work, the negotiated rates and the invoice to stay on those accounts, a workspace on your own provider accounts such as INFRO Studio runs every generation there, with its estimated provider cost shown before it runs.
Below: the questions that separate the options, a comparison table, and each option described from its own pages as of October 2026.
What should a creative team decide before choosing an AI platform?
- Whose provider accounts carry the work? The suite's (it buys model access and spends your plan's credits or units), an API company's (you pay it per output), or yours (your provider bills you under your contract). This decides who you negotiate rates with, whose data terms apply and whose invoice your finance team reads.
- What does one asset cost before you make it? Media models bill in different units: per image and resolution, per second of video, per character of speech. A team needs a price per take before it runs, not a balance that drops afterwards.
- Where do brand rules, review and rights live? A campaign needs the same palette, logos and look across models, a reviewer who can comment without generating, and commercial terms that cover every model you used, not only the suite's own.
Which AI platforms do creative teams use in 2026?
| Platform | Shape | Who runs the models | How a generation is billed | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Krea | Creative suite | Krea | Monthly compute units by plan | Designers want many image and video models with team controls on the Business plan |
| Magnific (formerly Freepik) | Creative suite + stock library | Magnific | Credits valid for a year | You also want a stock library and Spaces canvases |
| Runway | Creative suite + own models | Runway | Monthly credits by plan | You want Runway's own models beside partner models, with Brand Kits |
| Adobe Firefly | Creative suite | Adobe | Monthly generative credits | Your team lives in Adobe tools |
| Figma Weave | Node-based workflow app | Figma | Monthly credits; own keys on Enterprise | You build node workflows and work in Figma |
| fal, Replicate | Model APIs | fal, Replicate | Per output or per second of compute | Developers build the pipeline themselves |
| OpenRouter image API | Model API | OpenRouter's providers | Per completed image | You already use OpenRouter for text |
| INFRO Studio | Workspace on your own providers | Your own provider accounts | Your provider bills you; INFRO bills a subscription | You need the work, rates and invoice on accounts you own |
Creative suites: many models in one app, billed from the suite's plan
Krea sells monthly compute units by plan, and its pricing page lists third-party models including Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0, Flux 2, Nano Banana 2 and GPT Image with an approximate number of generations per plan. Its Business plan is team-based, with up to 50 members included, admin roles, model access controls and per-member spend limits, with every member's usage billed to the team's account. Paid plans list a commercial license, and Enterprise lists indemnification for AI-generated content "when usage follows the agreement terms"1. Of the suites, it says the most about team controls.
Magnific, Freepik's new name, combines a stock library with AI tools. Its plans include credits "valid for 1 year, no monthly resets", you can "Top up credits anytime", and the page prices models per use, such as Kling 4.0 at 1080p per three seconds and Nano Banana 2 per image. Listed models include Kling, Seedance, Nano Banana, Veo 3.1, Lyria 3, MiniMax, Flux.2, Recraft, Ideogram and ElevenLabs Music; plans list a commercial AI license, music rights on the higher plans, and "No model training on your data"2. It suits teams that want stock and generation in one subscription.
Runway makes its own models and also includes partner models; its pricing page names Kling 3.0, Nano Banana Pro, Seedance and Topaz upscaling. "Credits are the unit you spend to generate images, video, and audio on Runway", priced by model, duration and resolution; Pro and Max add Brand Kits and custom voice clones3. Pick it when Runway's own video models are the reason you are there.
Adobe Firefly plans include a monthly allocation of generative credits that "reset each billing cycle and do not roll over", with access to partner models "such as Google, OpenAI, Flux, and more", whose outputs draw from the same credits. Adobe's page is explicit on rights: Firefly's own models are described as safe for commercial use, while for partner models "You're responsible for determining whether content generated by partner models is appropriate for your project"4. That sentence is worth reading for every suite, not only Adobe's.
Figma Weave, formerly Weavy, is a node-based workflow app billed in credits, with each model using a different number per generation. Its Team plan gives each user an allocation from a "Shared credit pool", with admins setting per-user allocations and tracking usage; bringing your own API keys is listed only under Enterprise5. It is the closest suite to a programmable pipeline without code.
Model APIs: per-output access for teams that build their own tools
fal bills "by output unit — per second or per video — depending on the model" for video, and images by image count or megapixels; its pricing tables include Kling, Seedance 2.0 and Flux6. Replicate says "Most models are billed by the time they take to run", with some official models billed per output, such as a Flux model per image7. OpenRouter has an image API at /api/v1/images, with models such as GPT Image 2, Seedream and Flux.2 Pro and several providers per model; completed generations are billed, failed ones are not8.
These are the right choice when developers will build the team's tools, a batch pipeline or a product feature. They give no review, brand kit or storyboard; you write those. And the account you hold is with the API company, not with Google or OpenAI. If you hold fal or Replicate accounts already, they can also sit behind a workspace on your own providers. Image model routing covers how to route the same model across several of them.
A workspace on your own provider accounts: INFRO Studio
INFRO Studio (studio.infro.io) is the creative workspace of INFRO, a control plane that sits between a company's applications and the AI providers it already pays. Every generation is a gateway request on one of your organization's own provider connections, such as Google, OpenAI, fal, Replicate or ElevenLabs, so the provider bills your account under your contract. Studio is included in every INFRO plan with no add-on: Developer $35, Startup $79, Team $199 and Business $599 a month, each with a 14-day trial that needs a card. INFRO charges the subscription only, with 0% markup on model spend; estimated provider cost and INFRO's subscription are separate figures and never summed.
What it gives a creative team, each in production today:
- Estimate first. Every run shows its estimated provider cost before it starts, at your negotiated rate where you entered one, otherwise the vendor's list rate. A step with no known rate is shown as unpriced, never $0. The same estimate is available to scripts at
POST /v1/estimates. - Many models, checked per provider. Create runs a prompt on several models or providers at once; every setting and reference image is checked against what that model takes on that provider before any call, so a refused setting costs nothing.
- Brand kits. A kit per company or project holds voice, rules, palette, typefaces, logos and reference images; every picture and video step gains the kit's style and palette, shown before you run it. Social sizes a picture for each network with the real logo and typeface set over it.
- Review. Comments at a moment in a video or on a region of an image, approvals and change requests per shot, and view-only share links that expire within 30 days. Owners, admins and developers make; analysts view and review.
- Flows and batches. Chain steps on one canvas, publish a Flow as a one-form recipe, and run it over a list of up to 200 items, each with its own estimate.
- Governance. Budgets, member limits, model allowlists, guardrails and failover from the INFRO console apply to every Studio run, and every take records its model, provider, settings and cost.
Studio keeps nothing until an owner or admin turns storage on; work is then kept 30 days on Developer, Startup and Team and 90 days on Business. Generated media is stored as the provider returned it, so provenance marks stay in the file. Rights to the output follow your own provider's terms, which you read once for each provider rather than once per suite. INFRO Studio: image, video and audio on your own providers covers how a run works; /studio shows the workspace.
When is INFRO Studio not the right choice?
It is not the right choice if your team has no provider accounts and does not want any: a suite's credits are simpler than opening accounts with Google, OpenAI or fal. It is not the right choice if you need a stock library (Magnific), the Adobe toolset (Firefly), Runway's own models, or a free plan to try things (Krea, Runway and Figma Weave list one; INFRO has none). And if you mainly need a single model's best results, that model's own app may be enough. Studio fits when several people make media on several models, someone has to answer for the cost per asset, and the company wants the provider relationships in its own name.
How should a creative team choose in an afternoon?
- Write down whose accounts you want the work on, who will use the tool, and which models your briefs need.
- Strike out every option that fails one of them.
- For the rest, read three pages each: pricing per model, team controls, and the rights section for third-party models.
- Run one real brief through the top two and compare the takes, the cost per approved asset and the review trail. AI image and video production for agencies is a worked method.
Summary
Creative suites bundle many models into one app and bill from their own credits or units; model APIs give developers per-output access to build their own tools; and a workspace on your own provider accounts, such as INFRO Studio, keeps the rates, data terms and invoice with your company while adding estimates, brand kits, review and governance. Choose by whose accounts the work should run on, then by who will use the tool.